You Like Greasers?
by Satan Abraham
Summary: Hitting on Rufioh Nitram while Horuss was around was possibly the worst idea you've ever had. Hitting on Dirk Strider immediately after, however, was probably the best. Crodirk.
1. Chapter One: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and wow this was a mistake.

You'd been walking around when you saw Rufioh, all alone, just standing there. You certainly didn't see Horuss a few feet away, searching for something in the bushes. If you would've, you never would've started hitting on Rufioh, and you probably would be able to breathe right now.

You're not actually sure how dying would work when you're already dead, but you're pretty sure that if Horuss doesn't let you out of this headlock _right now_ you're probably going to pass out. It's really a miracle that he hasn't broken your neck yet.

Rufioh's trying to get Horuss to let go of you, but he's not doing a very good job. Everything's sort of going fuzzy. You can feel Horuss's sweat sticking to your body and if you survive this you think you're probably going to need a shower. Or three. Or twelve. You have never regretted hitting on someone so damn much. You'd thought that, hey, Rufioh's a nice guy, he won't outright tell you to fuck off, and he's sort of an outsider, too, in terms of interests. Not in terms of romantic success. In that regards you're on totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Almost kind of like your blood colors, which you don't care about at all and not just because, even though you haven't given up yet, you don't have any chance with Meenah Peixes.

Eventually, Horuss lets go of you, and you basically just collapse on the ground, gasping for air and watching as they walk away. Rufioh looks like he's sort of worried, but he just goes along with Horuss. Hm. Maybe you should try to let people come after you. Then maybe people would like you. You really have no idea what's wrong with everyone.

You also have no idea who this guy in the pantaloons is. You push yourself up into a sitting position and look up at him. He's god tier. And human.

You can't tell if he's dead or not because he's wearing weird pointy sunglasses, but _damn_, from what you can see, he's not ugly at all. And a _human_. You wonder if he's ever seen Grease. Or The Outsiders. Or any of those other movies that you watch when you're feeling some doubts about your humankin thing.

He holds out a hand and, after a moment of hesitation, you take it. He pulls you up and maybe holds onto your hand longer than necessary, but that could be your imagination. You sure as hell hope it's not your imagination. He looks _built_, and _sexy_, and wow you really hope he's dead.

"What's your name, babe?" you ask, leaning against a tree and mentally congratulating yourself on not fucking up the 'w.' It happens. Usually when you have more than one in a row.

He raises an eyebrow. "Dirk Strider," he says. God _damn_, his _voice_. You really, really want to get in his pants. You know what human males have down there. You've seen stuff about that sort of thing. "And you, Greaserfish?"

You grin and wonder where your cigarette went. You need to look as cool as possible and while Horuss was strangling you you apparently dropped it. "Cronus," you say. "You like Greasers?"

"Well, you're no John Travolta, but you'll do," he says, and you feel like you could practically fly. He's seen Grease. He has to have seen Grease.

You take a step closer to him, getting a little close but he has to know you're interested. He's taller than you, but you still manage to look him straight in the eye. Well. Weird pointy sunglasses. "Wanna go back to my hive?" you say. Cutting right to the chase, sure, but you figure that if he's alive you'll need all the time you can get. He looks a little taken aback. You decide to add some stuff on. "I've got a real human bed and everything. You know how many things you can do in a human bed that you can't in a re... well, what trolls sleep in?"

He probably wouldn't know what you were talking about and you need to keep as many cultural differences out of it as possible.

"Really?" he asks. He's kind of red. You're kind of purple, you bet. Nobody has ever humored you this long, apart from Rufioh, but this guy looks actually interested. Well, maybe. You can't really tell behind the sunglasses and the fact that he's sort of emotionless.

You drop a hand to his arm. Holy shit muscles. Holy shit. Holy shit that god tier prince outfit thing doesn't do him justice. He needs a tanktop. Some shorts. Or nothing at all. Yeah, nothing at all sounds pretty good to you right now.

"Doesn't that get sort of hot?" you ask. The corner of his mouth quirks up in a little smirk. "I mean, you could always take it off."

"Do you want me to?" he asks. You nod.

And then he takes off his top and holy shit if you weren't already dead you probably would have died again because holy shit.

You're staring and your bulge is going crazy down there, you either need him to help you out or you need to head home to take care of yourself, because _damn_. You feel yourself blushing.

"Oh," you say. "I. Uh."

You can't shut up, for some reason. You've never gotten this far. Ever. He looks like he needs this as much as you do, and that is enforced when he grabs you by the shoulders, slams you against a tree, and kisses you. You squeak. Your bulge is going crazy and your nook is wet and you have probably never been this turned on, ever. You bury your hands in his hair, his incredibly light hair, and his hands have moved from your shoulder to your stomach under your shirt and now they're holding your hips and his thumbs reaching up to brush your gills and _fuck_.

You've never felt anything that good. You grind against him, feeling his weird human genitalia all hard inside his pantaloons.

One of his hands slips down into your jeans, going dangerously close to your bulge and you moan. Shit. You're making way too much noise. He moves his mouth away from you a little and you stare at him. You've never seen anything so beautiful.

You pull his head back to you and kiss him. He runs his tongue over your mouth and you let him in, careful not to bite it off. You let your tongue in on the action, though. He's lucky that he pulls his tongue out of your mouth before he touches your bulge because you're pretty sure you would've bitten it off. You moan, louder this time, probably bringing anyone in a ten mile radius toward you.

He looks a little startled when he first touches it. You hate yourself for being a troll more than ever in that moment. You hate it, you hate it, you hate it. Sometimes you think that, maybe, you don't really want to be human, but now you don't want anything more. If you were human it wouldn't be this fucking awkward. He wants to ask what it is. You can tell. God _damn_ it.

You save yourself. You drop down to your knees and pull down his pants. You've practiced this. On popsicles, sure, but it still counts as practice, and you're pretty sure you're good with your tongue. His weird human... thing... is stiff. You waste no time, putting your mouth around it and starting a little at the taste, but you get used to it pretty quickly and soon you're going to town, holding onto his hips for balance. He's holding onto one of your horns and is making these cute little noises.

He suddenly shoves you away and you crumple back against the tree, wiping your mouth. Weird genetic material comes out of his human thing and you decide to watch more human porn so that you know better how this works. He's panting and his pants are around his ankles and you really need to take care of yourself but overall you think it didn't go to badly.

You really want to see more of Dirk Strider.

* * *

**can you tell i don't know what i'm doing anymore**

**did i ever know what i was doing**


	2. Chapter Two: Cronus

The second time you see Dirk Strider, you're hitting on Meenah. At least, you were, before you started talking way too much and didn't notice as she walked away.

That happens way too often. Maybe you should try to keep an eye on people when you're talking to them? They're always so rude, just walking in the way when you're in the middle of a sentence.

He watches you for a few seconds. "Why are you talking to yourself?" he asks. You... don't really have an answer for that, actually. You grin, tonguing the end of your cigarette as you're prone to do when nervous.

"I was talkin' to a friend, but they left," you say. He nods slowly. "You gonna leave on me?"

"No," he says. You're more relieved than you'd like to admit. To be honest, you're surprised he came back at all, even though he did let you get pretty far the last time you saw him. You didn't need your human porn for _days_ after that encounter. This guy seems alright. "But could you tell me, what, exactly, is in your pants?"

You swallow. Shit. Well. It's better to have this conversation before you start making out, because that would, and almost did, totally kill the mood. "Well," you say. "It's my bulge. And also my nook. But I'm pretty sure you're talking about the bulge."

"No shit," he says. "Alien dick, alright, I can deal with that. What's the other thing?"

"Well, it's like... kind of like..." you don't really know how to explain this. You honestly have never had to and you would've been perfectly happy never having to. "Like a... I don't know, like human females have, sort of, I guess? All trolls have both."

"Huh," is all he says, and you're pretty sure you fucked this up. You decide to step closer to him, because maybe if you get close enough he'll get overcome with lust and jump you then and there. And then maybe he'll kiss you again and touch you again and god damn it you wish you were a human.

"You sure you're not going to leave on me?" you ask, and he just smirks. "I'll do anything, really, just ask and I'm down. Any freaky shit you're into, I'll try it out! I don't mind. You can-"

"Cronus?" he says. You pause mid-sentence, mouth still open. He's looking you like you're an idiot. He's definitely going to leave now. Damn it. "Shut up. I'm not going to leave you because of your weird alien genitalia."

You grin, biting down on the end of your cigarette. You're pretty sure you're going to be making out at the very least soon. You should probably put your cigarette somewhere safe, because you've wasted so many of those lately. You stick it in your back pocket and wait. He's got to do it soon.

Oh, fuck it, you'll just kiss him.

You grab his head and kiss him full on the lips. He's not expecting it, and stumbles a little bit. But he puts his hands on your hips and squeezes, feeling your hipbones and you wish that he'd go for your gills again because that was so soft and sensitive and it felt so _damn good._

You let him back you up into a random hive. You have no idea whose memory this is but you don't really care, because now he has you up against the wall and he's kissing you and you can't _handle_ it, your hips buck somewhat of their own accord, grinding against his crotch. He pulls your shirt up over your head, just avoiding getting it tangled in your horns and throwing it aside. It's cold but you don't give a damn. He moves his mouth away from yours and kisses your neck, collarbone, and then his tongue flicks out experimentally at your gills and you fucking _melt_. You keep yourself upright by keeping your hands tangled in his hair, and he kisses your gills and uses his tongue on them in ways you never could've imagined, all the way down to your hips. He bites your hipbone and you try to keep quiet but a strangled moan manages to rip its way from you anyway.

He hesitates a little then. He's got one finger hooked in your belt loop and the other poised above the button of your jeans, ready to get rid of them, but you know he's thinking about alien genitalia and god _damn_ it. Maybe you could give him another blowjob to help him forget.

Nope, it's too late for that. He's gotten rid of your jeans and you're not wearing underwear underneath because, well, if you're to get lucky you want to make it as convenient as possible and your jeans are a little tight anyway.

He doesn't know what to do. Neither do you. It's the most awkward fucking moment of your entire life _and_ death and you wonder what to do. "Sorry," you say. He straightens. The mood is effectively killed. Deader than you.

"We'll figure something out," he says. "You said you had a bed?"

"Yeah," you say. "We could go there next time. You can't do anything in a recuperacoon, and that's all anyone here will have. Couches are too small, and walls and trees get old after a while."

"I don't know," he says, smirking a little again. _Damn_, you feel sort of black for him when he smirks like that. "I kind of like shoving you up against stuff and kissing you."

"Well, next time you can fuck me senseless in a bed," you say. God, your bulge is going crazy. He can see it, because your pants are still down and you're pretty sure your nook is _dripping_. You've never been this turned on in your _life_ and that's saying something.

"Maybe," he says. He's sort of pink. You're pretty sure you're blushing, too. "Or maybe we could just have a normal date. I don't know much about troll culture, but-"

"A date," you say. "I can do a date. Movies and stuff, right? That's what a date is?"

"Sure," he says. He shimmers a little. He's alive, isn't he? You're pretty sure he is. You didn't quite get a look at his eyes because of his sunglasses, but there's something about him that just screams 'alive.'

You pull up your pants. You're seriously going to have to take care of yourself when you get back home, but for now you can force your bulge back into those jeans. He kisses you, a deep one but not sexy like your other kisses. You love it, though you like the sexy ones more.

"I'll see you later," he says, and then zaps out of the dreambubble in a white pop. Yeah. Alive.

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you have a date to plan.

* * *

**i didn't have any ideas so i just decided to make this a multichapter hey guys how're you doing**

**also like every three chapters we'll switch pov? Like cro for the next chapter but then dirk for three chapters et cetera don't know how long this will go on have no idea how this is going to go but you know whatever**


	3. Chapter Three: Cronus

You stay up all night watching human romance movies. And then Grease, just because you haven't for a while and needed something to keep you up. Once you're done with that, you drag yourself into the shower and stand under the water for ten or twenty minutes, nearly falling asleep once or twice. You're _exhaused_, but you still need to plan the date. You'll go to sleep once you're done with that.

When you get out of the shower, you just sort of stare at your hair grease for a while, then decide that it's not worth it. You're not going to go anywhere, after all... you'll just plan your date and then go to sleep. You dig your glasses out of the cabinet they were currently buried in, beneath extra grease and extra cigarettes and a few toothbrushes. It won't matter. You can actually see for a day if you're going to just stay home all day.

Predictably, you fall asleep as soon as you sit down on your bed, notepad in front of you.

You wake up five hours later, groggier than when you fell asleep and with notebook spirals indented on your face. You wipe drool out of the corner of your mouth. Shit. You were supposed to be planning the human date. You have no idea when he's going to be showing up, and so far all you know is that you kind of want to watch Grease again.

You turn it on while you think. You mute it, so that you can concentrate, but eventually you get sucked in and there go like four more hours down the drain. Shit. Maybe he won't come back for a few more days. That would suck, sure, but it would at least give you some _time_. You've never planned a date before! Hell, you've never _been_ on a date that didn't last more than two minutes before!

(Rufioh took pity on you a while back. His pity lasted the aforementioned two minutes.)

Maybe Rufioh would know what you should do. He's been on loads of dates, you bet. He's one hot fucker. And he has a steady matesprit.

Yeah, you'll chat up Rufioh.

You head back to the bathroom to get changed and grease your hair. You throw your glasses in the sink. No need for those stupid things anymore. Sure, you have a date. No, you're not going to look like an idiot for everyone to see.

The way to Rufioh's hive is fairly uneventful. You nearly run into Kankri's kid ancestor thing, but, once again, he flips you off and runs. Too bad, too. You like Kankri well enough, but his kid ancestor just seems a lot more interesting. Less preachy. More laid-back, maybe.

But you're going on a date with Dirk Strider, so you don't care about shorter, shoutier Kankri.

You have to knock on Rufioh's door about thirty times before he answers. He looks sort of nervous, fingers curling around the door and peering at you like he just really wishes that you would leave.

"Hey, chief," you say, grinning and biting down on your cigarette.

"Cronus... I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be around... I mean, Horuss is here, and..." he trails off. _Damn_, he's hot. But you're not here to hit on him. You shake your head.

"Nah, don't worry, not here to woo you," you say. "Just want to talk to you about something."

He just stands there, waiting. You have no idea how to breach the subject and decide to jump straight in.

"How do you plan a date?" you ask. He looks confused.

"You have a date? ...Or did Meenah send you?" he asks. You sigh.

"Yeah, I have a date. Just tell me how to plan it," you say. He bites his lower lip. It looks sort of hot - focus, Ampora, focus.

"Well... have you thought about what your... partner, I guess... likes? I mean... it's good to have common interests, but even if you don't you can... pretend to, or something," he says. Well. He's been certainly no help. You have no idea what Strider likes, apart, from kissing you. Maybe you could just make out the entire time. Maybe actually fuck.

"Thanks," you say, scowling and heading out. He shuts the door as soon as you turn around. Great. Now you're left with even less than what you had before. Maybe Grease is out. He's already seen it... what the hell does he like, anyway? His weird pointy sunglasses look faintly like the troll anime you tried and failed to get into in your big Rufioh phase. But you seriously didn't like that. Shit. Maybe you can just make out the entire time. You really just want to make out the entire time.

Of course, you see him on your way back to your hive. He doesn't see you, though, he's interrogating shorter, shoutier Kankri. You duck behind a tree, watching him, watching how he talks, how he moves his hands, thinking about how much you'd _love_ to have those hands all over your body...

You get lost in a fantasy of jerk-off proportions and zone out for a little bit there. When you realize that you're leaning against a tree, your hand down your pants and staring off into space, both of them are gone. Your little dancestor/ancestor thing, however, is standing there, staring at you.

You don't know anything about this guy except the fact that an alternate version of you scored a date with him. You pull your hand out of your pants and look back.

He doesn't say anything, just snorts and walks away. You go after him, grabbing onto his shoulder. He hits your hand away. "Don't _touch_ me with tha-"

"Did you see where Dirk went?" you ask. He looks confused.

"Dirk? Who the _hell_ is Dirk?"

"Human. Pointy shades. Prince of Heart," you say. He nods.

"Yeah. After talkin' to Karkat he said somethin' about finding his Greaserfish and headed that way," he points in the way of your hive. How'd he know you lived there? "Now go away."

You wave, giving him one of your more charming smiles, and _run_ back to your hive. As expected, he's lounging around out front.

You've learned how to manipulate the dream bubbles so that you 'remember' your hive as some sort of human house. It took a bit of work and a lot of denying things that had happened to you, but you eventually got it. "Hey," you say. He nods to you.

"Are you ready for our date?" he asks. You curse yourself for just watching movies all night and then falling asleep.

"Uh," you say. "I was thinking... we could maybe just... you know, make good use of that bed."

He rolls his eyes - at least, you think he would've, you can't be sure with those sunglasses - but nods. "Why not?" he says. "It's not like I have anything better to do."

You grab his hand and pull him into your hive, leading him up stairs and into your bedroom. Your bed is _perfect_ - huge and comfortable and oh fuck that notebook's still on it and the selection screen for Grease is still up on your TV.

You very subtly try to turn off the TV and kick the notebook under the bed. He watches you as you do this, one eyebrow raised. You put your cigarette on your dresser and turn around to face him and holy fuck he is right there.

He kisses you, and it's a kiss like the one he gave you right before he left the last time. It's a good ending kiss, but not really a good opening kiss. You kiss back with vigor, your arms wrapped around his neck and fingers tangled in his hair. He maneuvers you until you end up tripping and collapsing on the bed. He breaks the kiss and looks down at you. You can't seem to find your breath, but you grin and pull his head back down for another kiss.

He gets rid of his godtier outfit in a hurry and soon your clothes are gone, too. Your legs are wrapped around his waist, your bulge exploring new territory and your nook dripping wet. His dick is hard, and you love the feel of it against your bulge. If it were a little better positioned it would be in prime area to get into your nook.

You kiss him again, nipping at his earlobe - gently, though, you don't want to mutilate the damn thing. He makes a muffled noise against your neck and you press yourself harder against him. He's pressing you against the bed, his hands stroking your gills and his face buried in your neck while your bulge curls around his dick and your hands clutch at his back.

He pushes himself up onto all fours, leaving you. You're breathing heavily, and so is he, a light flush of pink spreading across his cheeks.

You wonder how those sunglasses stayed on.

You reach up and take them off and are faced with bright orange eyes.

They're some of the hottest eyes you've ever seen.

You grab him for another kiss and vow to never, ever let go of this amazing catch.

* * *

**man i don't know where this is going but i guess we'll see**


	4. Chapter Four: Dirk

Your name is Dirk Strider and you wonder if you can get this troll off of you without waking him up.

You're pretty sure that you can't fall asleep in a dreambubble - wouldn't you just wake up outside of the dreambubble? You can't be asleep _while_ you're asleep, that's just stupid. But Cronus can sleep, and he is - arms tightly around your waist, head buried in your chest, horns just barely missing killing you then and there. Wouldn't that be an interesting way to go.

Of course, you are godtier, and dreaming, so it's highly unlikely that you'd actually die.

You wriggle a little, and he mumbles something, tightening his grip. He's one clingy guy. Physically, you mean, mostly, but every time you've been in the same area as him for as much as five minutes he's been all over you. It's kind of nice, you guess, to have someone chasing after you all the time instead of it being the other way around, but you think that maybe you could stand to do something else every once in a while. Watch movies, maybe, or just go on normal dates instead of just having some heavy makeout sessions. You haven't _actually_ had sex yet, which is understandable, seeing as you've seen each other three times, but you've come really damn close. He's desperate and maybe you are a little bit, too, either way you're weak from that recent breakup thing, and Cronus Ampora is a nice distraction.

You try to wriggle out of his grip again. This time he rolls away, tangling himself in blankets and his horn piercing a pillow. You laugh a little and reach for your shades. You managed to get them on the headboard before things before Cronus fell asleep on you. Heaven forbid your dream glasses broke.

You slip them on your face and get out of the bed, crawling over Cronus and grabbing your underwear from the floor. You head for the bathroom - you're not sure, exactly, where it would be, but you find it eventually.

There's a pair of glasses in the sink. Does he need glasses? You think that that's probably the cutest fucking thing ever. You smile a little and take them out of the sink, putting them in a cabinet. You glance at the shower. Cronus will be sleeping for a while, you could probably get in the shower for a while. A while being an hour or two.

You briefly wonder how much hot water dreambubbles have, then decide that it doesn't matter if you run out or not. You're going to need a hell of a long time in the shower to contemplate this. One of your 'legendary infinite showers', even though you're not going to focus on your dream self because that whole thing is toast now, you're just going to stand there and concentrate on what the hell is going on.

You're in there for an hour and a half, staring up into the water, letting it splash over your face, your chest, your legs. You don't know how you're going to keep this working. Maybe if you try to get to this exact space whenever you fall asleep, that would be okay - you've always had good control over yourself while not conscious in 'real life', obviously, but you don't know if you know how to _get_ here each time. Maybe if you just concentrate. Nothing in the world really makes sense, anyway, maybe concentration is all it takes.

And then there's the problem of whether you actually like Cronus or are just using him as some stress relief from the break-up. You don't know if you're over Jake. You think you're maybe not, but maybe a dead alien greaser fish-troll can help you get over him.

It's funny to think you used to make fun of _Jake_ for lusting over aliens. He probably has one of these guys he likes, too, now that you think about it. One that dresses in blue, because while these guys are gray, they're no gigantic shitty space furry. But there's probably a blue-themed one, like yours is greaser-themed.

You did have a crush on Matt Dillon in The Outsiders for a while when you were younger, maybe you just have a thing for greasers.

The water begins to run cold and you hop out of the shower, shivering, and grab a towel. You dry yourself off as quickly as possible and wrap the towel around your waist, wondering if it would be possible to keep yourself awake here and in 'real life', like you did before Sburb happened. If you could figure out how to do that... that would be ideal.

You bypass your clothes and head for Cronus's dresser. He's a hell of a lot scrawnier than you, but you're about the same height and his shirts look a little big on him, anyway, so you figure you can borrow a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. The boxers fit fine. The t-shirt's a little tight, but that's okay. It's not like death by putting on too tight of a t-shirt is going to keep you dead forever. Not very just or heroic. You sit down on the edge of the bed and wait.

Cronus wakes up then, rolling over to lay his head in your lap. You pet his hair absentmindedly.

"Have a nice nap, Cro?" you ask. He looks up at you like he didn't expect you to actually still be there.

"I thought you'd be awake," he says. You shake your head.

"Nothing to do there," you say. "Jane's psycho, I have no idea where Roxy went, and I... don't really want to see Jake for a while, even if I did know where he was."

"The others in your session, right?" he asks. You nod. He stays quiet. The blanket tangled around his stomach is making its way down his body and it's getting a little distracting. You fight to keep your dick down and your eyes on his face. "Why don't you ever take your pointy sunglasses off?"

"Why don't you ever go out with your glasses on?" you ask, and he turns purple. Blushing. It's cute as fuck.

"Y-you know-"

"I took a shower and saw them in the sink," you say. "You'd look cute with them on and your hair down. Not that I don't like the greaser look."

"Greasers are perfect," he says. He sounds like he's still half-asleep. "They're tough and human and always seem to get some action. You think Danny Zuko went a night without someone in his bed? Nuh-uh."

"And how many people have you had in your bed since going greaser?"

He's quiet for a few seconds.

"...One," he finally admits. "You. But... hell, it's not like I had anyone before, either, so the greaser thing must be working, right?"

You laugh and bed down to kiss him on the forehead. He wriggles, trying to get you to kiss him on the lips.

"Right," you say.

* * *

**it's a miracle a crodirk chapter without any smut call the newspapers**


	5. Chapter Five: Dirk

As soon as you flicker into shape in Cronus's hive, he pounces on you.

"Nice to see you too," you say, and he makes a sound that vaguely reminds you of a cat purring. You pet his hair, having gotten used to the feel of the grease by now. "Miss me?"

"It's been a while," he mutters into your shoulder. "I didn't know..."

"It's been three days," you point out. Damn, it would be nice if you had some sort of communication system. Maybe you can find some hacker troll to get you two set up on that instant messaging thing. "But, yeah, missed you too."

He looks up at you. "You will tell me if you want to break up, right? You won't just not show up?"

He's worried and his question makes you wince. "No," you say. "That's the worst way to do it. But I do need to talk to you about something."

A worried look flashes over his face, and you realize that you just made it sound like you were going to break up with him. Shit. You probably should have brought that up at a different time. God, you're so stupid.

"I'm going to try to stay awake here and out of the dreambubbles at the same time," you say.

Cronus's forehead wrinkles in confusion. "Is that even possible? You secretly a Captor, what with their freaky dual-everything shit?"

"No," you say. "I did it before Sburb, though, on Derse. It was tough, juggling a dream self and a waking self, but I figure, if I could do it then, I can do it now, right? And then if I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed, I'll go to sleep here. We can time it accordingly, and it would be like I'm here all the time."

"All the time? That would be great!" he says. His fins are wiggling a little. He's so excited. It's so goddam cute. He kisses you, then backs off suddenly, taking a few steps back and crossing his arms over his chest. "I mean, if you think you can do it. And if you want to. I don't want you t-"

"Cro," you say, taking a step forward and putting your hands on his shoulders. "Shut up."

He nods and pulls a cigarette out of his back pocket. He slips it into his mouth and chews on the end of it thoughtfully. "What do you want to do today? Wanna celebrate you maybe getting to be here all the time?"

"Maybe later," you say. "You think you could show me around?"

He hesitates. You probably shouldn't have brought that up. Cronus Ampora doesn't seem to have many, if any, friends. You learned that much when asking around for him. Most of the other trolls just made a face and asked you what the hell you were doing, looking for him. One with huge horns and wings laughed nervously and looked at the sweaty guy next to him. A girl troll with tattoos and piercings just raised her eyebrow. One that looked suspiciously like Cronus, albeit more Harry Potter, told you that he was a douche and also a good kisser.

Well, he wasn't wrong on the second part, though you have to wonder how he knew.

"We don't have to," you say. Cronus shakes his head.

"We can," he said. "As long as you promise we can celebrate when we get back."

You smirk and lean closer to him to whisper in his ear. "Oh, we will definitely celebrate."

He turns purple and you grab onto his hand, leading him out of his hive.

He points out stuff like the trunk he used to store his rings in when he needed to take them off on short notice, and the one he _used_ to keep his Ahab's Crosshairs in, before Meenah was a bitch and broke it. He calls out to some weird troll in a helmet, who yells unintelligibly and falls off of his skateboard. Cronus snorted and muttered something that sounded like 'freak' under his breath.

And apparently some troll in a red turtleneck heard him, because suddenly he's blocking your path, spread out like a starfish to keep you from passing. Cronus jumps when he sees him.

"Shit," he says. He glances at you. "Dirk, you can go, you didn't do any-"

"Cronus, I couldn't help but overhear you call Mituna a 'freak,' which could or could not be in reference to his Psiionics, seeing as 'freak' is dangerously close to 'mutant', which could be seen as both offensive and triggering to Mituna and other so-called 'mutants', such as myself and Rufioh, if he was in hearing distance. Also, I see that you're holding hands with this strange human god-tier, and while I do congratulate you on finally getting someone to be your matesprit, that can also be offensive to those who choose to stay celibate _and_ triggering to those who cannot find someone to be flushed with, which was you not too long ago, so I would think that you would be a bit more sensitive."

You let go of Cronus's hand and glance at him. He has an expression of polite interest on his face. It's carefully crafted, but you can tell that he a) wants to go make out somewhere or b) strangle this kid in the red turtleneck.

You're seriously not sure which.

"Kan," Cronus says, breaking off Mr. Turtleneck mid-sentence. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I promised Dirk I'd show him around, so he didn't... appropriate troll culture accidentally or somethin'. And I heard Rufioh refer to himself as a mutant. He's way over there-" he pointed in a random direction. "With Horuss. And they're having some sloppy makeouts. In public. Right next to... uh, the little Ampora and some alternate me's. They feel very triggered."

Turtleneck's eyes widen and he disappears. You really have no idea where he went. Come to think of it, you had no idea where he came from when he did show up.

Huh. Maybe the reason he called himself a mutant was because he could teleport.

"Sorry," Cronus said. "You're not safe anywhere from Kankri. Usually I'll listen to him, because he listens to me about my humankin thing and my matesprite problems, but, man, he can't take a hint."

"What hint is that?" you ask, turning to face him. You hook your fingers into the belt loops on his jeans and tug him toward you. "That celebrating hint?"

He's flushing a bright purple. He glances around. "He will be lecturing Rufioh for hours," he says, sending a mischievous look toward you. "We could do some sloppy makeouts around the little Ampora and some alternate me's."

You grin and bend down to kiss him. As always, he's eager to respond, and soon you're pulling him toward a little hedge of bushes. There's an open trunk that you nearly trip over. Cronus looks at it dejectedly.

"A guy popped out of that thing and told me he'd date me," he says, and sighs. "Then as soon as we got within three feet of my lusus, he hopped on and rode off. Was just usin' me for my lusus. I don't even think he knew who I _was_, he even called me Eridan."

"Well," you say. "I'm not just using you for your lusus, because I think the whole 'lusus' thing is kind of weird, anyway. The Condescension tried it on Earth, and they just ended up eating the kids."

He just looks at you. You kiss him, shoving him up against the stone wall bordering the area on one side. He moans a little, vocal as always, and his bulge is being a little crazy down there already, pressed up against your thigh. You push your hands into the back of his jeans, feeling his ass, and he melts into you. You nip at his fin and he hooks his arms around your neck for support.

"D-dirk," he breathes, grinding against you. "Dirk, let's pail, let's do it right now, right now out in the open, right against this wall, let's do it."

You're jerked back into reality and step away. He makes a little whining noise in the back of his throat and hangs off of your neck.

"You haven't had any problem with doing stuff before," he says. "I gave you a blowjob even more out in the open. Do you want another one? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, we don't have to pail yet, we can do that later. After... something more romantic than talking about lusii eating kids."

You can't really stay mad at him. He tries so _goddam hard_, it's kind of sad but kind of cute at the same time. "It's okay," you say. He lets go of your neck and sinks to the ground, kneeling in front of you. Oh Christ, he's going to give you another blowjob and you have a feeling that it's going to be just as good as the last one.

He pulls down your pantaloons and underwear in one quick yank and your dick, which is already hard, who are you kidding, Cronus Ampora has a way of making Little Dirk stiff like no other, and when he puts it in his mouth you have to put your hand on the stone wall for support. He uses his tongue in ways that you're not sure are possible. He holds onto your hips to keep himself steady, teasing you, licking, sucking. You let out a hiss of breath, hand curling. You're shaking, and he seems totally concentrated on your dick and it's the best feeling in the world.

You don't last long. He can sense when you're going to let go before you can and moves out of the way, finishing you off with his hand. You pull up your pantaloons shakily.

"Jesus _Christ_, Cro," you say, breathless. He just grins that alien, beautiful grin of his and you know at that moment you're not just using him to get over Jake.

* * *

**days since last m-rated crodirk shenanigan: 0**


	6. Chapter Six: Dirk

"Can you come back with me to my hive?" Cronus asks when the two of you exit the small, overgrown area. You hesitate. You probably should try to wake up and get out of the damn dreambubble already, but he's looking at you with puppy-dog eyes and he _really_ looks like he needs you.

"Alright," you say, and he brightens immediately, latching onto your arm. You begin the long walk back to his hive, passing several other trolls on the way. He gives each of them a smug look, kind of like he's showing you off, and it sort of freaks you out, but you just go with it. You give a half-wave to the troll you gave a high-five to while entering the game, but she's too busy laughing her ass off to notice. Cronus makes a face.

"They're all just jealous," he mutters. It sounds like he's talking to himself; trying to convince himself that they're not just laughing at him.

"That's right," you say, nudging him with your elbow. He looks up, and you kiss him on the lips, quickly, so it doesn't turn into anything more, but enough to let the other trolls know what's going on. He's surprised and tries to make it more than it is for a second, but when you pull away he cuts it out and satisfies himself with keeping a hold on your arm.

You have to give him a few more kisses before getting back to his hive, narrowly avoiding another lecture from Mr. Turtleneck, and when you get there, you kiss him one last time, a deep kiss, like you usually like to kiss him before leaving.

He takes a few steps back. "You've gotta go now?" he asks. You nod.

"I've got things to take care of," you say. "A universe to save, you know."

He scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the ground. "That's right. The universe would implode if Dirk Strider didn't save it," he mutters. And he's in a pissy mood again. This always happens when you have to leave. You give him a little smile.

"That's right," you say, kissing him once more before disappearing out of the dreambubble and back into the real world.

You're still at the edge of nothing, trying to fly back into the center of things, ARquiusprite trying to bug you. You haven't told him about Cronus yet, and you're pretty sure you're never _going_ to, because once you do he'll never shut up about it, and he'll probably shove in several shitty horse puns and excessively censor profanity while he does so.

Yeah, he's even more insufferable since being melded with that weird muscular sweaty troll.

You need some time to try and figure out how you're going to be in both worlds at once. You already told Cronus that you would try, and you don't want him to think that you just said that to make him happy. Christ knows he needs something to make him happy, though. Hell, the first time you saw him he was nearly getting murdered again by a big sweaty troll that may or may not be the ancestor of the one melded with AR.

Speeding through space isn't that demanding, thankfully, and you're able to concentrate on getting yourself back into Cronus's hive. He's probably in the shower, singing and washing out his hair before he watches Grease and goes to bed. He takes long enough showers, not as long as you, of course, but still fairly long. You can picture him there, the water running over his skin, his gills, him having to make sure that his horns don't bump into the shower head and making sure he doesn't get soap in his gills. He washes himself carefully, reaching down toward his bulge hesitantly, wondering if he actually needs to and he decides he does and oh fuck you're not trying to get there you're just fantasizing and doing a damn good job of it, too, Jesus _Christ_.

You concentrate on speeding through space for about ten minutes or so, then go back to thinking about Cronus. He's probably out of the shower by now, towel wrapped around his waist and blow-drying his hair. You know he does that; you've seen the thing. He keeps it next to his glasses. He takes a shower in the morning and a shower at night, and every night before going to sleep he watches Grease.

He puts on his glasses - you have to use some imagination here, because you've never actually _seen_ him in his glasses - and heads back to his room, still clad in just a towel. He flops down on his bed after turning on his TV and pressing play for Grease. He watches the movie with such a rapt attention even though he's seen it hundreds of times before and you _really_ want to be there with him right now.

You want it more than anything in the world at that moment and maybe that's what causes you to split. You let the dreambubble take over your mind, still feeling yourself speed through space but suddenly you're in Cronus Ampora's bedroom and only one thing is different from what you imagined.

He doesn't even have a towel on. He's completely naked apart from his glasses, sprawled out on his bed, watching Grease.

He jumps when he sees you. "How did you..." he trails off, then realizes what sort of situation he's in. He lunges for the TV and misses it, but he does manage to knock his face against the floor pretty hard. You crouch down beside him.

"I figured out how to be in two places at once," you say, and he jumps up right away. He's excited. His bulge is pretty excited, too, from the look of it.

"That was fast," he says. You shrug.

"I still don't know how I'm going to control it, and when things get particularly crazy out there I might have to go, but for now I'm doing it," you say. He grins and pushes himself off of the floor, leaping onto you and kissing you. You're mostly just distracted by the fact that he's completely naked. "Wanna put on some clothes so that we can watch this without getting distracted."

"Getting distracted would be okay," he says, nipping at your ear a little. You have to make a conscious effort to reply.

"Yeah, but to be honest, I've never seen this movie all the way through, and since you seem to like it so much, I figure I needed to at least once," you say, and he peels himself off of you immediately.

"I thought you had!" he says. Christ, he sounds almost _accusing_. It's so goddam cute. "You mentioned John Travolta-"

"Everyone knows John Travolta was in Grease," you say, sitting down on his bed and watching as he hops around, trying to get dressed. He ends up in a black t-shirt not unlike his white one that he usually wears and some underwear. He sits down next to you, burying himself under your arm. "I like the glasses."

He freezes and reaches up toward his face slowly. His fingers close over his glasses and he pulls them off. "Shit," he mutters. He throws them across the room. They land in a pile of dirty laundry, making their home among the stained t-shirts and tight pants. "I totally fuckin' forgot, shit, shit-"

"They're cute," you say. He looks at you skeptically.

"You're just saying that," he says. You shake your head.

"Nope," you say. "One hundred per-cent telling the truth. Now how about you rewind this so that we can rewatch it from the beginning."

* * *

**i don't think that this technically counts as crodirk shenanigans does it**


	7. Chapter Seven: Cronus

To be honest, you thought that he'd be gone when you woke up. That he'd been lying about being able to be in two places at once, and that he just felt bad about leaving you alone and was just letting himself drift off to see you.

But he's still here, and it looks like he's sleeping, too. You thought he couldn't do that. He could be faking, but, then again, you don't know how being awake in two places works. You wonder if you should wake him up. No, he probably doesn't want you to wake him up, he might leave if you do that, but he's just _sleeping_, lying there on his side, all curled up with his knees tucked into his chest. He threw his godtier outfit to another corner of the room before going to sleep, so his top is bare. You keep yourself occupied with just _looking_ at him, loving how muscular he is. He's a hell of a lot more muscular than you are. You're way too scrawny. You should work out.

Actually, that sounds like a waste of time when you're already dead.

He mumbles something and rolls onto his back. You take the opportunity to slip underneath his arm, resting your head on his chest. The two of you were cuddling before you both went to sleep, but somewhere along the line he turned away to sleep all curled up.

He doesn't resist you, but he does wake up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and looking down at you. "Either it worked or I'm dead," he says. "And I can still feel myself in the real world, so I'm pretty sure it worked."

"You've still got your eyes," you point out, and he smiles. You adjust yourself so that he's even closer. He's so goddam _warm_. "So, what are we going to do today?"

He grimaces. "I... actually think I have some stuff to do in the real world. I promise I'll be back soon, though. Hell, I might just stay here in a sort of comatose state. But I don't think that we can do anything."

You _hate_ the fact that he's alive. You hate it almost as much as you hate not being human. You can tell it still sort of freaks him out. Your bulge, your horns, your gills, your fins, they all freak him out but for some reason he's still with you.

You just wish that you could get rid of all of that stuff. That you could chop off your horns, sew up your gills... you don't think you'd have the courage to make your bulge more human-like, you're never going to mess with _that_, it'd be too easy to royally fuck up, but everything else... you could even dye your skin or something.

He's still looking at you. You force a smile, but you can't bring yourself to say anything. You're jealous; jealous of anything that would _dare_ take up Dirk's time and it's so _stupid_. You wonder if you shouldn't have gone for an alternate version of him, but, to be honest, you'd have no idea where to begin looking for one of those. It's not like you can just go up to a counter and say 'Yeah, one alternate Dirk Strider please,' and it'll just be handed over.

He pulls you into him and kisses the top of your head. It sort of freaks you out when he does stuff like this, all couple-y and cutesy. You think you like it. You don't really know. You've been so focused on trying to get someone to at least do something _sexual_ with you this whole cute thing kind of confuses you. You think he might actually like you. Otherwise he would just go for the sex.

Which you _still_ haven't actually done.

"I'll be back soon," he mutters into your hair. "And I promise, some day when all of this is over, we can have tons of days just to ourselves. Once we don't have to take down Lord English."

"You mean when you don't have to take down Lord English," you say. "I'm not doing shit. Meenah got together some alternates, as well as Aranea, 'course, the two of them are practically inseparable nowadays, and met up with the little Serket and are doing stuff, but me? It's not like I'd be any good at it, and besides, I'm trying to be..."

The excuse sounds lame so you're not even going to say it. 'I'm trying to be a more sensitive and nice guy.' Bullshit. You're scared. You're scared shitless by Lord English and you'd rather just stay here forever than go on some stupid quest, even though it would probably score you points with Meenah.

Which you don't care about now because you have Dirk.

He's not saying anything. Why isn't he saying anything?

You need to keep talking.

"I mean, it's like, if I die, I'm _dead_, that's it, there's not a second afterlife. Dreambubbles are fine, yeah, I've been here for-fucking-ever, but I don't want to _die_. If you die, you'll show up here and it wouldn't be like you were wiped from existence. If I die... of course, you could always find some alternate Cronus, maybe the one that scored a date with the little Ampora. He's got some game," you really should shut up now, because you're not making any sense, but you always find that that's when you talk the most.

"Cronus," he says. "I don't want an alternate Cronus. I'm sure the alternate Cronuses are great, but you're the best one there is."

"Sure," you say. You think for a little bit. "Actually, I don't know if you'd be able to find any alternate Cronuses. Haven't seen them anywhere in a while."

He laughs, then sits up. You whine - unintentionally, it's not like you _want_ to sound like an idiot - a little and he kisses you to shut you up. "I need to go now," he says. You sigh and kiss him one more time before sliding out of the bed and heading for the bathroom. You need to take a shower and you don't really want to be there when he actually does leave.

You seriously do need to take care of your bulge, though, and that's what you concentrate on in the shower. Not the fact that your matesprite probably thinks you're a coward and an idiot and is just pitying you. Not the fact that when you get back there he's either going to be lying comatose on the bed or totally gone. Not the fact that you've become so dependent on him in these few days you've been in a relationship.

Maybe you can talk to Rufioh. Maybe he can tell you what the hell you're supposed to be doing.

Hopefully Horuss isn't there. You're pretty sure that he still isn't the biggest fan of you, but there's really nobody else who's in a successful matesprite-ship apart from Rufioh.

You finish up your shower and blowdry your hair before greasing it. You need to do this, sure, wet, greased hair may seem good at first but it's a bitch to keep under control in the afternoon. And besides, the blowdrying keeps your hair looking good.

Your hair falls over your forehead and you wince. That is far too reminiscent of your wizarding days. You make a mental note to never look in the mirror before starting greasing unless you have an extremely good reason.

You pull on a shirt before greasing your hair, because after way too many greasy shirts and fucked up hairstyles you've learned better. It normally takes you fifteen to twenty minutes to get your hair at least looking presentable, but your hands are shaking so much today that it takes you closer to an hour.

Fuck.

You really, really suck at this whole relationship thing.

* * *

**no crodirk shenanigans here on another note i'm slowly uncovering a plot. not much. but it's coming along.**


	8. Chapter Eight: Cronus

You don't look back into the room before heading outside. Maybe Dirk wanted to say goodbye and maybe he didn't, but you don't really want to be there when he actually _leaves_. You hate that. You'd rather just pretend he was holed up in this dreambubble somewhere than see him poof out.

It's eerily quiet. You don't see anyone around - no alternate Cronuses, no little Amporas, _nobody_. Maybe Kankri's somewhere around. Or Rufioh, you do seriously need to talk to him, you should try and find him. Maybe he's still asleep? Would Horuss be with him? What about Mituna, you could use something to dump your pent-up frustration on and he's always good for that. You'd thought that Meenah and Aranea were the only two to leave with the little Serket.

It is early. They must not be up yet.

Either that or you totally missed something, which would suck. You had to fight to get into the game in the first place, what if they just up and left you here, all alone? Usually someone like Mituna will spill if you pressure him, and if Kankri feels bad enough he'll tell you, because they have tried it before, but you've been so busy with Dirk lately...

That's insane. It's just early. They're just not around yet.

You head for Rufioh's hive, stopping to peek into a few more hives along the way. You're pretty sure most of them are uninhabited, but it never hurts to make sure.

All of them are uninhabited. You looked in every single window on one that looked particularly well-kept, but there was absolutely nothing.

You pound on Rufioh's door, because, to be honest, you're getting a little freaked out. When he answers, hair all messed up and only half-dressed, you feel so relieved you could hug him. And you would, but Horuss is literally standing two feet behind him, and you don't really feel like getting the shit beaten out of you this morning.

"Do you need more relationship advice?" he asks. You nod. He sighs and steps back. "You might as well come in... I guess..."

Horuss is glaring at you and, combined with that smile, it's really starting to freak you out. "How about you come out here?" you ask. Horuss is looking directly at you. It's _really_ freaking you out.

Rufioh looks at Horuss. "I'm gonna do that..." he says. He sounds almost apologetic. "Just wait in here..."

Horuss nods, but the look he gives you - or the look you assume he gives you, what with those goggles and his ever-smiling face you can't actually be sure - tells you that you'd better not try anything, because he will be staring from the window.

"What is it now?" Rufioh asks.

"How the hell does a relationship even work?" you ask. He blinks.

"Uh... are you asking because you want a relationship? 'Cause I don't think I can help you with that shit... I mean, you've got to find someone on your own..."

"No, no, I did," you say. "And we make out and stuff. And watch Grease. But what _else_ are we supposed to do? And how do I know that he's gonna keep liking me? How do I make sure he doesn't leave? How can I get him to have sex with me, because we've gotten really close but we've never actually done it."

Rufioh is silent for a bit, just taking all of it in. "Well, I don't know... I guess, just be nice, and like I said before... try and figure out what he likes. Do that... and I dunno how to help on the stay liking thing, it's always worked out pretty well for me..."

"Yeah, well, you're Rufioh," you snap. "_Everyone_ wants to get in your pants."

He sighs. "I know... I get kind of sick of it sometimes, you know... can't be friends with anyone without them trying to get in a relationship... except for Meenah, she's cool, she doesn't try and hit on me."

"Okay, no, we're not talking about your problems here," you say. "How could having _too many_ people like you be a problem? No. You're going to tell me how to keep Dirk liking me."

Rufioh shrugs. "Ask someone else. Porrim, maybe?"

"Oh come on, she doesn't have a long-term matesprite or even kismesis," you scoff. "How would she know?"

He shrugs again, and you sigh.

"Fine," you say. "And tell your matesprite to stop staring at me, I'm not gonna try anything."

Rufioh gives you a small smile as you leave. You don't know what you're supposed to do now. Is there anyone else who knows what a long-term relationship is like? Damara, maybe? You can't understand her half the time, she's got a really, really weird accent. Latula... or Mituna... yeah, Latula. Though it would be fun to screw with Mituna a little, too.

You wander toward where Latula usually is, thinking about Dirk. You wonder what he's doing right now - maybe fighting something. You bet he looks sexy when he fights. He's all muscle and you're pretty sure he fights with a sword, which is a hell of a lot hotter than your Ahab's Crosshairs. You wish you could see him... too bad Aranea's gone, because maybe she'd have a way for you to spy on him a little. You'd like to see him in the living world, cutting down enemies and rescuing his friends and basically being a badass that you're glad to call your matesprite.

Of course, you'd be glad to call _anyone_ your matesprite, but that's beside the point.

You nearly run into one of the little Amporas while daydreaming about Dirk. You say 'one of', because there are seriously tons of them and one of them is wearing a skirt, you think. This one's god tier.

"Hey, little Ampora," you say, grinning. He takes one look at you and shudders. "Hey, what was that for?"

"You're pathetic," he mutters.

"Oh come _on_, how could you get that from three words? I've never talked to you before!"

He just scoffs and stalks away, and you wonder how the hell you got such an irritable dancestor. _You're _not an irritable asshole. At least, you don't think you are.

Well, Dirk likes you, and that's really all that matters, anyway. Though you could go for a kismesis, a matesprite's better than nothing.

* * *

**no crodirk at all in this chapter next chapter there will be though probably but yeah cro's just figuring stuff out there will be stuff definitely by dirk's next chapter because i'm focusing them all in the dreambubbles?**

**also.**

**the up8**

**i.**

**what.**


	9. Chapter Nine: Cronus

"No."

"You don't even know what I was going to say!"

Latula looks at you and sighs, brushing her hair back with her hand so that she can see. You're not actually sure how she's able to see with those glasses, anyway, but apparently they aren't the issue and a few strands of hair are.

"C'mon, just hear me out," you say, and she glances back to Mituna, who is in one of his calmer moods, sitting on the ground and picking grass by the handful. "I'm not gonna hit on you."

"Are you sure about that?" she asks. Fuck. At least Rufioh would let you get a word in before outright refusing you. He just sort of tiptoed around the fact that he wanted you to go away.

"Yeah! I just need some advice, and Rufioh's no help," you say. Latula raises an eyebrow. You decide to just jump right in because if you don't you have a feeling that she'll just leave. She might just leave anyway, but she might actually give you some ideas before leaving if you start talking right away. "How do you keep someone liking you?"

"Someone likes you," she said, sounding like she can't believe it. You aren't surprised. Everybody's been like that. "Porrim said she saw you with some human god-tier with _totally_ rad shades the other day. That true?"

"Yeah, that's Dirk, and I don't want him to stop liking me!"

You might be a little frustrated. Nobody would take it seriously. Nobody ever took you seriously. Not when you were in your wizarding phase, not when you learned about humans, not when you pursued them romantically. They either ignore you or laugh at you, and you are _fucking sick of it._

Predictably, Latula giggles. "I don't know! Ask Meulin or something, she likes romance! Later!"

With that, she grabs Mituna and leaves in an incredibly strange and smooth exit.

You really don't want to go see Meulin. First of all, visiting Meulin usually means you'll get Kurloz along with her, and Kurloz really freaks you out for some reason. He's just... creepy. And you have a feeling that he wants to kill you. Even though you're already dead.

And there's the small fact that Meulin usually bursts your eardrums every time you go near her. It's not like she's excited to see you - she hates you as much as the next troll - but she just doesn't ever control her _volume_. Sure. She's deaf. But _seriously_.

You decide to pop back into your hive to see if Dirk is back. He's not. He's completely gone. Damn it. Hopefully he'll come back tonight and you can make out, or have sex. One of the two would be nice. Or both. Yeah, both would be even nicer.

You're going to have to look for Meulin.

Shit.

You take your time heading over there, wondering if you could get out of it by doing something offensive. Kankri's a little easier on you than the others, but if you do something _really_ offensive, then he can't help but come lecture you! And then you can talk to him about your problems (tagging your triggers, of course) and he can lecture you and by the time you're done Dirk would probably be back.

If Kankri wasn't celibate you'd definitely go for at least a pale relationship with him. At _least_. Maybe if you didn't have Dirk it would edge into something else. Something redder, probably.

Yeah, if you didn't have Dirk you'd like Latula in red, Meenah in black, and pale for Kankri. Latula and Meenah could switch frequently, you just feel blacker for Meenah most of the time.

But you do have Dirk, so you don't have to be thinking about your quadrants.

Besides, humans don't _use_ quadrants.

You manage to waste about ten more minutes contemplating quadrants and humans and how Dirk looks naked, but then you have to admit you're going to need to see Meulin. It's stupid, you don't actually _have_ to see her, but she's the only one left who could possibly help you. Even at the risk of running into Kurloz and possibly gaining severe physical and emotional damage, you need to know how the hell you're supposed to keep a relationship working.

Meulin is alone when you find her, bent over a tablet, scribbling something down.

You tap her on the shoulder and she jumps and screams, turning around to face you.

"Cronus!" she shrieks. You wince. Great. Maximum volume, just like every day.

You don't want a huge conversation with her, so you decide to keep it short. "How do I get someone to keep liking me, and how do I get him to want to fuck me?"

"Who? It really depends on who the person is! Is it that weird human? I bet it is! I don't know anything about him except he's a heart player! Like me! So think about me!"

You're starting to get a headache, and also a weird feeling, like someone's watching you. You glance around. Yep. Kurloz. Right behind that tree. Meulin is also absolutely no help, and you don't want to stick around because wow those are some really threatening gestures. Yeah. You're going to leave now. Right now. Backing away from Meulin. Leaving. You're totally leaving and you don't really understand why he's still staring at you. Can't he tell that you're leaving? You don't really want to run but you have a feeling that you're going to end up running anyway. You don't want to turn your back on him, either, because then he might... rip your spine out or something, you don't know, you just don't want to turn your back on him.

Once you get a decent distance away from Meulin (a decent distance being you can't see Kurloz anymore and can therefore think about Dirk instead) you turn around and walk back to your hive.

Halfway there, someone grabs you around the waist and pulls you into a kiss.

Dirk's back.

"Dirk," you gasp, and he smiles.

"Busy day?" he asks. You nod, and open your mouth to tell him how fucking creepy Kurloz is and how fucking stupid Mituna is and how fucking turned on you are right now (okay, maybe not that last bit), but then remember that you should think about his interests, too.

"How about you? What did you do today?" you ask. He grimaces.

"Doesn't matter," he says. "You shouldn't have to worry about it."

Well, you're not going to argue there.

You kiss him. It's nice to have someone pay their full attention to you, after a day of chasing people around, asking for romantic advice. His mind seems somewhere else, though, which is sort of really annoying, but at least he's kissing you. At least his hands are around your waist, fingers playing with your belt loops. At least you're close enough that you can feel the hard muscle beneath his shirt.

As long as you have that much, you figure you'll be fine.

* * *

**next chapter more shenanigans i promise**

**cronus's chapters always turn out way shorter than dirk's it's kind of weird**


	10. Chapter Ten: Dirk

You kiss him hungrily, pushing all of your issues to the side and focusing completely on him. His smooth, almost slimy, gray skin. His horns. His heavily greased hair and the dual scars on his forehead. His tall and lanky and slightly scrawny body, pressing up against you and his hard, slightly claw-like fingernails clutching at your hair.

You move your face away enough that you can look at him completely. With all his shortcomings personality-wise, Cronus Ampora is not an ugly troll. He's scrawny, and that's about it. He looks like he wants to say a lot, he has since you first pulled him into this nice little corner between two troll houses, but he's uncharacteristically quiet.

"What's wrong?" you ask. He shakes his head and pull your head toward him for another kiss. You shake him off, slightly annoyed. "Seriously, Cronus, what's going on?"

He sighs. "I don't really want to talk about it, my problems are some boring shit anyway, can we please not? Especially not where anyone can hear us?"

"Then let's go back to your place and we can talk about it there."

He looks a little nervous, and you want to kiss him and tell him that it'll be okay, you don't have to talk about these things, you can just watch Grease or some other movie like that.

"I... that's _weird_, though," he says. He sees you looking at him and averts his gaze, talking faster. "I know that humans don't have moirails, they just all kind of do that sort of thing, and I really want to try and do things the human way, but it's still weird, talking to my matesprite about deep stuff."

You don't want to force him into anything, especially something that goes against the way he was brought up, but it is really bothering you... well, if it's _that_ important, you'll figure it out soon enough, right? And if it was urgent, he'd tell you. It could just be some weird troll thing. You shouldn't think about it. Or, rather, you should pretend not to think about it so that you can focus on _him_ at the present moment.

He looks anxious. You kiss him quickly. "Don't worry about it," you say. "But you can talk to me whenever you need to, alright? Assuming I'm here."

"Yeah," he says, and for once, he doesn't try to turn the kiss into something more. He just leans into you, clutching you and burying his face in the crook of your neck. "I can figure it out. 'S stupid anyway."

You wrap your arms around him, rubbing his back with your thumbs. You don't say anything. Neither of you do, for a while. Eventually he pulls away, his usual expression carefully arranged on his face. "Ready to go back to my hive?" he asks, grinning. You laugh a little. He grabs onto your hand and tugs you out of your little corner. You let go of his hand immediately and wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him as close to you as the two of you can get without falling over. He's happy. You make him happy and goddam if it isn't the best feeling in the world.

It's quiet out, a few alternate version trolls discussing things but for the most part ignoring the two of you. You can tell by the way that Cronus stiffens whenever the two of you pass someone he's waiting for a comment or a laugh or something along that line, but it never happens. You like it better this way. You're able to forget the rest of the world. Your problems, his problems, the problems of the universe beyond this little sanctuary, which, by the way, could be destroyed by Lord English at any time, wiping out Cronus Ampora and the rest of the dead trolls inside, they don't _matter_ in moments like these. They'll always be at the back of your mind, of course, nagging you, poking at your brain and telling it to forget this stupid greaserfish and just get back to saving the world, but for a few minutes, you can forget them.

By the time you get back to his hive, Cronus is totally back to his normal self. As soon as you step over that threshold and the door is closed, he's kissing you. You kiss him back, backing him into what seems like a kitchen. You don't actually give a fuck at this point where you are. He's kissing you and your hands are under his shirt, running lightly over his gills and eliciting shudders and small, breathy moans. He tugs at your godtier hood, and you get the memo right away, taking a small break to get out of your shirt and let him marvel at your physique. He's ogling you, there's always that small moment between you taking off your shirt and the two of you picking it back up again where his eyes slide over your chest, your shoulders, your arms, taking in every detail, every muscle, every freckle.

You kiss him, up against the refrigerator or the troll equivalent thereof, and move your hands from his gills to his pants. You flick the button open with minimal difficulties. He apparently realizes what you're doing and breathes in a deep breath, a breath that turns into a half-moan when you pull his pants (no underwear, as usual) down, exposing his bulge. It's an alien, almost animalistic but somehow awesome thing, searching out another reproductive organ and curling around anything it can find. You let it curl around your hand, running a finger along the bottom of it. He whines, deep in the back of his throat, and wraps his arms around your neck for support. He's shaking, whimpering and moaning and whining as you let his bulge wrap around your hand and explore the new territory, using your fingers to tease and rub and pleasure it. He presses his face into your collarbone, lips stretched so tight against his teeth you can feel them against your skin.

"D-dirk," he whimpers. "Please, please now."

One of his hands makes its way from your neck to your pantaloons, yanking them down, along with your boxers. He has a hell of an easier time getting them off than you did with his jeans. His bulge peels itself away from your hand, making its way to your dick, along with his hand, which is guiding your crotch toward his. You pull his shirt up over his head, discarding it and now the both of you are completely naked, apart from your shades.

He pulls your shades off at that moment, shoving them onto a counter and kissing you, tongue slipping into your mouth with the talent that you haven't experienced anywhere else. His hand is still down by your crotches, manipulating his bulge a little and working at getting your dick closer to his nook. You want to. You really want to fuck him right now, and if you don't you think that you might go crazy.

You wrap your arms around him and lift him up, his back sliding against the smooth door of the fridge. He wraps his legs around your waist and somehow he's made it so that the two of you are perfectly positioned to finally do it.

You take it. You thrust your dick, already slippery from his bulge doing its thing, into his nook and he lets out a shriek like no other. You're a little afraid you hurt him. You've never done this before, but it did go in incredibly easy, maybe it's an alien thing, but maybe it's also an alien thing that it hurts. Should you have done that?

He rocks against you, making enough noise to bring everyone in the next three dreambubbles toward you. You push him further into the fridge, letting your tongue feather over the gills on his neck. He's shuddering and clutching your back and your hip and his heels are pushing into your back and then it's over.

You don't know how to explain how you know it's over, it just seems to be. He knows it, too, because he untangles his legs from around you and you take a step back. You feel the aching need to get the problem of your dick nearly bursting taken care of, and he seems to know what you're thinking, because he drops to his knees.

You really don't know how you got this lucky.

The blowjob doesn't last as long this time, but that's your fault, for coming right away.

"I could go for a shower," he mumbles, standing up and leaning against you. "But I bet you could too."

"Hell, let's take one together," you say, pressing a kiss to his forehead. You're exhausted, but you can't imagine crawling into bed in this state, even if it is dreambubble bed.

Come to think of it, shouldn't you be able to just think yourself clean?

But that's not fun. And if you point that out, then you won't be able to shower with Cronus, which is sounding better and better by the second.

* * *

**well no shenanigans lasted about two or three days a personal record**


	11. Chapter Eleven: Dirk

You pick him up and carry him bridal-style to the bathroom. He squeals a little and wraps his arms around your neck and goddam if it isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen. He nestles his head in the crook of your neck, and it almost sounds like he's _purring_.

You wonder briefly how a fish troll can purr, but it sure as hell seems like he is.

You put him down once the two of you get into the bathroom, and he protests a little, but stops when you give him a kiss. He hops into the shower right away, not even waiting for the water to get warm, and pulls you in with him. You hiss as freezing cold water splashes onto you, but he's blocking most of it and it's warming up pretty fast.

"Need me to help wash your hair?" you ask him, and he nods, a small smile on his face. He's trying to not be overly enthusiastic about this and it's adorable, but you wish that he'd just let himself be overly enthusiastic.

Still, you help him wash the product out of his hair, rubbing his scalp and running your fingers through your hair. He makes a sound deep in his throat and leans against you. You smile down at him and give his scalp another rub before untangling your hands and reaching for the shampoo.

"Watch the gills," he mumbles. You nod and rub the shampoo into his hair until it's a frothy, wild mess. You, Dirk Strider, actually fucking giggle at this. He looks at you, indignant.

"What?" he asks. You shake your head, still smiling. With all the ways that you're being turned on right now, being wet and naked and pressed up against each other, there's something about this that's just adorable.

"You're so fucking cute," you say, kissing him on the forehead. He wriggles, and you duck his head under the water, watching to make sure shampoo doesn't get stuck under his gills. He stares up into the water, completely unaffected.

Of course. Fish troll.

"Do you condition at night, too?" you ask. He nods, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

"While we wait for it to set I can wash your hair," he says, grinning. Somehow, the razor-sharp teeth don't make this any less terrifying. "Then you'll be 'adorable,' too."

"Fuck," you say. He grins and you respond by rubbing conditioner in his hair, paying special attention to the sensitive spots and he writhes against you, strangled moans making their way from his mouth. He ducks out of the way of the water and the two of you maneuver so that you're closer to the spray.

"You're taller, so you're going to have to duck a little," he instructs, squeezing a quarter-sized puddle of shampoo into his hand. You comply, slouching, and close your eyes. He works the shampoo into your hair and you feel little pinpricks of claws here and there. You let yourself relax, slumping into his chest almost subconsciously. He holds you under the water and then he starts in on the conditioner.

Once his hands leave your head for the conditioner you jerk back to attention, standing up completely. He squeaks. "Time for you conditioner to come out," you say, and once again begin the complicated maneuvers of getting him closer to the water. You don't take as long getting the conditioner out of his hair but he sure as hell reacts anyway, though it's more of a low whine in the back of his throat than how it was earlier.

After getting your conditioner washed out, you step out of the shower and wrap a towel around your waist. He doesn't even bother, going straight for the blow-dryer. You watch him as he blow-dries his hair, staring at his reflection with a concentration that would be hard to find anywhere else. You decide that you should probably get your hair dried off, too, and grab another towel.

He looks at you and smirks. "Don't you have any regard for your hair?" he asks. You rub your hair roughly with the towel and then shake it out, spraying drops everywhere. He rolls his eyes and finishes with his hair. "Are we gonna go to bed or what?"

"Tired, are we?" you ask. He shakes his head, smirking. "Thinking of another use of a bed, then."

He grins and walks out of the bathroom, still completely naked. You follow him, just watching that fantastic ass. He's being seductive on purpose, you know it.

When you get up to the bedroom, it turns out that he actually was exhausted, because he's sleeping as soon as he hits the sheets. You're not used to sleeping naked, so you borrow a pair of boxers and crawl in next to him, pulling the blankets up around the two of you and snuggling into his shoulder, wrapping an arm around his waist. He mumbles something and pushes himself against you, his back against your chest.

You really like him, you realize as you drift off. You might even love him.

* * *

When you wake up, he's lying there, still curled into you but all tensed up.

"You alright, Cro?" you mutter into his ear, and he twitches, turning around and nearly whacking you in the face with his horn.

"You're awake," he says. You smile sleepily at him.

"Barely."

"So, do you know... do you know if you're going to be able to stay today?"

"Of course I can stay today," you say. It's not like you have to save the universe or anything. Alright, you do. But one day off can't hurt, can it? "What do you want to do? Take a walk and make out in some wooded areas? Flaunt our relationship in front of your friends? Watch some movies?"

"Let's do it all," he says, and you smile and roll away from him. He clutches your arm. "No, let's lay here for a while."

You roll back against him and in a few minutes you're both asleep again.

* * *

Eventually, you realize that you should probably get up. You manage to get Cronus up, cajoling him with kisses and promises of tons of making out, and after locking himself in the bathroom for half an hour, he swaggers out, hair greased up and cigarette in his mouth. You've decided against your god tier outfit, because it looks stupid. You've realized that, since you're in a dream bubble, you can just wear whatever you want. You go with your usual outfit – tank top version - before the whole god tier thing. Cronus grins at you.

"You look hot," he says.

"Likewise," you say, nodding to him before breaking your cool and grabbing onto his hand and leading him out of his hive. He's a little more confident than the other day, but he still tenses up whenever you get near any of his session mates. He holds your hand tighter on these occasions, turning your skin even whiter than it usually is.

You're enjoying this walk with him, though, not talking and not groping each other, just walking, holding hands, enjoying each other's company. He wants to get some action, though; he's edging closer and closer to you and his hand has hit your ass a few more times than can be called accidental. And that's fine, that he wants to fuck all the time. It's just part of him, like the insecurity and the greaser look and the not knowing anything about a relationship. You don't really have any idea on what you're doing either.

You pass a weird, mime-clown-troll with a stitched up mouth and he moves even closer to you. "Yeah, that guy's sort of creepy," you say, glancing at him. Mime-clown-troll smiles at you and gives you the finger. You look away from him. You don't get a very good feeling from him.

"That's Kurloz," Cronus says. "He scares the shit out of me. He doesn't _like_ me, I know he doesn't, and I'm pretty sure he's going to seriously maim me at some point in my death."

You press a kiss to his temple. "Not while I'm around," you say, feeling like a cliche, cheesy romance hero. 'Not while I'm around?' _Seriously?_ That's the best you could come up with.

Cronus smirks, but he's blushing a little. You can see it.

"So, where's that guy in the turtleneck?" you ask. "Last time we were out holding hands he was up in our face about it."

"Nah, it's just because I said something that's close to mutant," he says. "Usually Kan'll give me more slack than some of the other trolls, but he's never gonna forgive someone for saying something that's even within a three mile radius of mutant. Maybe we'll see him, though. That would be nice. Basically the only friend I have, other than you."

Oh no, that's really sad. Even you, the only man left on earth back before the game, had more than one friend. You squeeze his hand. "Well, then he's the only smart guy around, other than me."

Cronus snorts, chewing on the end of his cigarette. "Sure," he says. "And that's why everyone ignores me or laughs at me."

"Exactly," you say. "They're idiots. Total fucking idiots. Yeah, you're a little hard to get along with if the person you're trying to get along with doesn't want to get in your pants, and maybe you're a ball of insecurity underneath that rock-hard, sexy greaser exterior, and you can't really talk to someone without hitting on them a little, but you're great just the way you are."

He stops walking, and you turn to look at him. He's just staring at you, teeth clamped tightly over his cigarette. He looks almost _angry_, but somewhat sad as well.

Exhibit A, rock-hard, sexy greaser exterior over top of a ball of insecurity.

"Sorry," you say. "I... most of that wasn't necessary."

He sighs, looking down at the ground. "You know what's bugging me?" he says. He doesn't say anything for a while, and you wonder if you should jump in before he keeps talking. "The fact that even if I _wanted_ to, I couldn't break up with you because you're everything I have. If I wanted to break up with you and I did, I'd be back to complaining to Kankri and gettin' rejected all over the place. And it sucks, to know that I can't get more than one guy ever to like me."

You put your hands in your pockets, averting your gaze. What an interesting tree. "You... don't want to break up with me, though, right?" you ask hesitantly. He looks at you, almost frantic.

"No! No, I don't!" he says, stepping forward and reaching for you. His hand falls short and he lets it fall back to his side. "I don't. I don't want to break up with you."

You really hope he's not just saying that because he wouldn't be able to find someone else. You decide to change the subject. "So, how about finding one of those wooded areas to make out in?"

Crises averted. He nods and keeps walking, though he doesn't get close enough for you to grab his hand. Somehow it's gotten awkward. Fuck. You're suck an idiot. You shouldn't have said that, you should've stopped after 'total fucking idiots', you're such an _idiot_.

It takes you about ten minutes to find a wooded area. It's quiet the entire way, apart from Cronus pointing out a few things here and there. His voice sounds slightly strained. Fuck. You really fucked up. You know, considering your two personalities objectively, you shouldn't have been the one to fuck the whole thing up. Looking at it objectively, it should've been him.

Looking at it as you, you knew all along that it's always you.

Once you get to the nice wooded area - there are little bridges around, stringing from tree to tree; it's not as secluded as the one you used the last time, but it's still nice-looking. It seems quiet, too.

As soon as you're deep enough into it, he turns around and throws himself at you, kissing you roughly and sending you back a few paces. You wrap your arms around his waist almost reflexively, kissing him back and turning the hard kiss into a deep one. His anger ebbs and flows, you can feel it with his claws digging into your back but the way his mouth is moving against yours is softer. You rub his back with your thumbs, wondering you should go for the gills, because that always seems to make him melt.

Before you can try it, however, something interrupts you.

"Woah... sorry about that, man... we can go somewhere else..."

Cronus freezes and you turn around to face a troll who is basically the troll version of Rufio from Hook.

Huh.

That's interesting.

Behind him is the sweaty troll that nearly broke Cronus's neck when you first saw him, sweating profusely.

"It's fine," you say, the corner of your mouth quirking up in a smirk. "We like the more secluded areas, anyway."

Cronus makes a noise and you put your hand on his face in the hopes that that'll make him shut up. He hits it away.

"Well... congrats, Cronus... didn't think you'd get a matesprite, haha..." Rufio troll says and smiles a smile that looks almost like a grimace. He's actually pretty hot for a troll. If you didn't have Cronus and if he didn't have big sweaty troll, you might've gone after him.

"Whenever I thought about Rufioh walking in on me making out with someone, I'd always imagined a threesome," Cronus muses as the two of you leave the area. Well. His name is actually Rufioh.

You actually aren't all that surprised.

The tension between the two of you isn't gone, but a lot of it's gone, and you feel confident enough to put an arm around his shoulders as you walk. He doesn't wriggle away - you doubt Cronus Ampora will ever wriggle away from any touch - but he doesn't automatically melt into you like he usually does, either. It's a little sad.

You get back to his hive, all thoughts of making out in a wooded area gone. "Wanna watch The Outsiders?" he asks, peeling away from you.

"Sure," you say, because you actually like The Outsiders, unlike Grease. Good acting, totally fucking heartbreaking story, and young Matt Dillon. What more could you want for in a movie? Hell of a lot better than some other movies you can think of off the top of your head.

You sit down on his bed while he pops the movie in. He sits close to you and you put an arm around him, pulling him into you. He complies, and the two of you settle back to watch one of the most fucking heartbreaking and sexually arousing stories of all time.

(Rob Lowe's towel scene. Enough said.)

Even though the end sort of leaves a sad note, one definitely not the best for making out after, as soon as the credits start to play (Stay Gold, of course) Cronus is all over you. He pulls you in by your shirt, kissing you sloppily. You make a noise deep in your throat and shift closer to him, hands resting on his hips. You can feel his hipbones through his shirt and skin, and it's so fucking hot. You've always had a thing for hipbones, collarbones, nice hands, and god damn does Cronus have all three.

Minus the claw-like fingernails.

He moves his mouth down, kissing your jaw and down your neck and the hollow at the base of your throat. You let out a low moan, leaning into him and tightening your grip on his hips. He tears away the strap of your tanktop with his teeth, scraping at your shoulder and god _damn_ does he know how to work that tongue. His sharp teeth cut through the fabric without much hassle, and he manages to expose your shoulder and part of your nipple. He places kisses down your pec all the way to your nipple, which he takes in that fabulous mouth of his and uses his fabulous tongue and _Jesus Christ_ that _tongue_. He sucks and licks and maybe he's a little rough but _damn_ he knows how far is how far he should go.

He gives a final tease to your nipple and rips your shirt even further, kissing and licking and scraping your chest and stomach with his teeth. He leaves a nice imprint on your hipbone, something that, if someone were to be looking for a hickey there, they sure as hell would find one. Like the rest of your torso.

You briefly wonder if dream hickeys transfer over into the real world, but Cronus Ampora pulling down your pants wipes that thought from your mind. He starts with the kisses again, and then you come to your senses.

You move your hands from his hips to his shoulders and pull him up. "Hold on a minute," you say, trying to keep your voice even. _Fuck_, why don't you just _let him_. "What's this about?"

"What do you mean?" he asks defensively. "I'm just... just kissing you."

"And doing a damn good job of it, but that's not the point," you say, giving him a little ego boost. It helps. You can tell. "Before we finished that movie, you were mad at me. And then suddenly you're on your way to giving me another amazing blowjob."

"I just wanted you to know that I don't wanna break up with you!" he blurts out. You stare at him. "I mean, I shouldn't have said it like that and I thought that you thought I wanted to and that you'd just do it first to get it over with and I didn't want you to so I decided to show you that I really didn't want to break up with you because I don't. I don't want to break up with you. I never want to break up with you."

Fuck. You made him feel bad. Almost on impulse, you reach out and grab him, hugging him to your chest. "God, I love you, Cro," you say.

* * *

**i promised a 3000 word chapter and god damn it i wrote it in an hour and a half shit's more intense than nanowrimo**

**anyway that's why it seems like it could've ended like ten billion times in here i needed something to keep it going because i didn't update yesterday so id oubled what i probably would've written yesterday and therefore 3k chapter have fun kiddos**


	12. Chapter Twelve: Dirk

He freezes, looking up at you. "Huh?" he asks. You rub his back, idly, smiling a little.

"I love you," you say, and he squeaks. Trolls may have different words for love and all of those weird quadrants, but he's picked up what you mean by 'love' you guess.

"You're not just saying that?" he asks, and you shake your head, kissing him on the forehead. You've found that you have a weakness for being sickeningly adorable, and that it sort of freaks him out but that he likes it.

"If you wanted to break up with me, I don't think you'd be using your tongue like that," you say, and he flushes a light violet. "Now, what do you say we get something to eat? We missed lunch, and I'm starving."

He smirks. "I don't know, if we go into the kitchen, we might have to have sex again," he says. "I might just have to right then and there."

"You can control yourself until after we get something to eat," you say, pulling your pants up and standing up. You discard your tanktop; it's half-ripped apart anyway, you might as well just go shirtless. Cronus follows a lot closer after that, hanging off of you, tracing his claws over your back and shoulders and chest. It's incredibly distracting, but you manage to ignore it until you get to the kitchen and he gets your earlobe in his mouth and tugs on it with his teeth, being gentle enough as to not maim it but rough enough that it turns you on. He pokes at it with his tongue, and you take one look at the refrigerator and turn around to kiss him.

He was expecting it, so he doesn't make as much noise as he usually does, and that's a damn shame, but soon you'll have him making enough noise that this small bit of quiet won't matter.

You don't stay at his mouth long, moving onto his neck almost immediately, and he shudders but is still uncharacteristically quiet. You go for the gills, tonguing them and then he caves, clutching you and moaning through his teeth, right up against your neck. You pause and move away, and he whines, reaching out for you. You smirk and pull off his shirt. It momentarily gets caught over his head, so you take the chance to kiss his neck and collarbone while his vision is obscured by the thin white fabric. He wriggles, and when you finally yank the damn shirt off of him he leaps at you, backing you up against the counter and kissing you roughly. His hair's all messed up from the shirt and his cheeks are flushed violet and god _damn_ is he attractive. You wrap your arms around his waist, pinkies hooking in his belt loops and thumbs rubbing up against the soft skin of his lower back, and kiss him back as hard as you can. He responds almost immediately - you're so pressed up against him you can feel his bulge writhing around in there, fighting to get free. You really are hungry, though. Your stomach and your dick battle it out, and eventually, after a long, hard battle with Cronus helping out on your dick's end of the thing, you decide that if you don't get some food you're going to die.

You push him away as gently as you can, but it's tough, especially when your dick is still fighting the battle you'd decided was over. "Food," you say. Cronus raises an eyebrow and looks pointedly at your crotch.

"Oh, I'm hungry alright," he says. You ignore him, just like you ignore how much you really, really want to fuck him right now. You ignore all of that, and while it is incredibly hard, the gnawing hunger in your stomach helps quite a bit.

You look through the cupboards and eventually find some chips and a few cans of soda. You toss one to Cronus, who pops the tab and takes a sip, licking some stray soda off of his lips and god damn it he's trying to seduce you again.

You distract yourself with shoving your face full of some troll chips that remind you vaguely of Doritos, albeit not as good. He smirks. He knows what he's doing. He's such an asshole and god damn to you love him.

You polish off half of the bag of chips with Cronus staring at you, tongue curling around the tab on the can - he accidentally cuts his tongue when his tongue goes into the can and it's probably the most hilarious thing you have ever seen, him cursing a can of pop, throwing it to the floor, and threatening to Ahab's Crosshair it. You laugh a little at this, and he glares, purple blood leaking through his teeth and onto his lower lip.

"Want me to kiss it better?" you ask, and he looks interested. You grin, put down the chips and cross the few feet between the two of you, kissing him and sticking your tongue into his mouth, bypassing sharp teeth to run your tongue down his, tasting the blood. It doesn't taste that much different from human blood, a little more diluted, but, then again, it has been in his mouth for a while.

He puts a hand down your pants, capturing the attention of your dick, which started struggling for attention of your mind almost as soon as you stopped feeling incredibly hungry. You make a noise in the back of your throat, trying to not make too much noise - that's _his_ job, he makes all the noise, you just kiss his gills and wash his hair and _make_ him make those noises. You move your mouth from his to trail kisses down his neck, biting a little because you can _do_ that, you're not the one with razor-sharp fangs, but then he shoves you into a chair and yanks your pants down and nope you're not going to win this one.

It's strange that he should be so good at blowjobs; you'd think his teeth would get in the way but they don't and you are getting one hell of a blowjob yet again from Cronus Ampora.

* * *

**it's al ittle short for a dirk chapter but i theoretically have someone coming over so here you go~**


	13. Chapter Thirteen: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you mini freak-out is over.

You'd thought you'd screwed up, you'd thought you'd screwed up _big time_, but now, curled into Dirk on the couch, head on his shoulder and your body nearly on his lap. You've perfected getting your head on his shoulder without spearing him in the face with your horns, something which you think is a pretty big accomplishment. Of course, it wouldn't be necessary if you weren't a damn troll and didn't have any damn horns, but that's beside the point.

He's asleep, one arm dangling around your shoulders. The two of you were just sitting, talking a little but mostly just sitting and enjoying the feel of the other's body, but he was apparently tired because he fell asleep. It's not time to sleep yet, but him sleeping now might give him more energy later, which would be nice. Then maybe he'd be up for fucking. You gave him a blowjob and he kissed your neck a lot, but you want to get back to what you did the other night.

You let your mind wander a little bit, thinking about how you haven't really talked to anyone besides Dirk (and Rufioh, actually, funny how that turned out) in the past few days. Or weeks, maybe. You're not sure how long you and Dirk have been together, but time doesn't really matter in the dreambubbles. You're going to be nine sweeps forever - around 19 human... what were they called... years. You wonder how old Dirk is. He can't be that far away from your age. Maybe he's a little younger than you.

Yeah, you could see that. He's a lot better built than you are, taller and more muscular and overall better proportioned, but there is something about him that says he's younger. Maybe it's just instinct. You should ask him when he wakes up. Maybe after the two of you do some making out, or maybe some sex. Whichever he feels up for.

You snuggle deeper into his chest and he mumbles something, his arm tightening around your shoulders. "Cro?" he mutters, and you twist to look at him. You can't tell if his eyes are open or not from this angle and with his shades, but you respond just in case.

"Yeah?"

"Man, did I fall asleep? Sorry about that," he straightens, and you adjust your position to match his. He pulls you completely onto his lap and you let him, burying your face in the crook of his neck. His arms wrap around your waist and you have a feeling that the two of you are going to be having some fun before too long. Your bulge certainly thinks so.

You place a kiss on his neck, and he tightens his grip on you. Yep. You're fast on your way to some fun times.

But then he lifts your head up and kisses your forehead, and you know he's in a cutesy mood. You still don't know how you feel about these cute moments, when he kisses you on the forehead and hugs you and things like that. It's nice, you suppose. It's certainly not bad, it's attention and you can really tell he likes you in these moments. But... you're still a bigger fan of the heavy makeouts and the fucking and the blowjobs and the handjobs and all that fun stuff. You've been focused on getting some action almost your entire life and certainly your entire time being dead, now that you have it you just want more, but the cute stuff is fine too.

You just hope that it doesn't take up all of your time with Dirk.

"Your hair's still all messy," he mumbles. He's still half-asleep. You reach up to your hair, and he catches your wrist in his hand. "'S cute."

You feel your face heating up and avert your gaze. He put a new shirt on before the two of you sat down on the couch, but you didn't, and now you feel strangely vulnerable and self-conscious. It sounds funny, because he's so much more muscular than you are, but it would be better if he were shirtless too. For more reasons than one.

"Your hair always looks perfect," you say. "You've nailed the 'just got out of bed and damn do I look hot' look."

He laughs a little at this. "I style it," he says. "Just don't spend three hours in the bathroom like you do."

"Twenty to thirty minutes," you retort. "An hour if it's really screwed up."

"And, of course, you can't see, so you have to be right up next to the mirror," he drawls, and you grimace. You'd forgotten he knew about your glasses.

"So what if I can't see? It makes everyone else all that much more attractive. They all thought I had no standards, but really I just couldn't see if they were attractive or not. You've gotten close enough that I can see you're the hottest thing I've ever seen, though," you say, adding it on as an afterthought. You've been up close and personal with his entire body, and you can confidently say that every square inch of it is attractive.

"You must have really shitty vision," he says, and you nod.

"It's horrible," you admit. "But glasses look stupid on me, so I don't wear them."

He's quite for a little bit, then he speaks again. "How about contacts? You know, the little things you put in your eyes and they're like glasses," he says. "I don't know how you'd go about getting them here, but we could work on it. Then you could look in horror at everyone you've been hitting on."

You laugh a little and snuggle back into his chest, your head tucked into his neck, one arm hooked around his neck and the other clutching the collar of his shirt, and he hums a little as you drift off, his arms still holding you close to him.

You really don't know how you managed before you met Dirk Strider.

* * *

**i just really felt like fluff tonight cro of course is thinking some thoughts but none of them get acted on right now in this chapter**


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Cronus

You wake up in your bed, lying on your stomach, completely alone. The button of your jeans is digging uncomfortably into your stomach so you roll over onto your back, staring up at the ceiling. You wonder where Dirk is. You wonder what time it is. You wonder if it's too late to watch Grease.

You yawn and sit up, rubbing the side of your head with the heel of your hand. Shit. You went to bed without washing your hair. Well, at least you were sleeping on your stomach, it should be fine... it's not like you got product all over the bed, there are just a few spots on your pillow and blanket. It'll be fine. You'll be fine. You've fallen asleep without washing your hair out before, it's never been that big of a deal. The only horrible thing is how your hair probably looks now. You don't even want to think about it.

But, you do, and then you decide that you should look around for Dirk and then take a shower. If he's gone, then you can probably just leave your hair down and find your glasses - they fell into one of the many piles of dirty laundry in your room, you _think_ by the TV somewhere - and maybe just watch some movies. You're exhausted for some reason and don't really want to do anything today, and if Dirk's not still here there's no reason to make sure you look good. Maybe you can work on some music later, too.

You pad around the entire hive, even peeking into the pantry, wondering if maybe he's looking for more chips. He sure seemed to like the ones that he found yesterday... earlier today? You still don't know what time it is. It doesn't really matter, you guess, but it's still kind of messing with your senses.

Nope. Nowhere to be found. Even though you were sort of looking forward to not styling your hair and just sinking into bed, naked except your glasses and watching movies and working on music, you feel a stab of disappointment. If he's gone working on stuff in the real world, he's probably going to be tired when he gets back, and then he probably won't want to do _anything_ but cuddle. Cuddling's okay, sure, but...

Of course, there's the off-chance that he'll be frustrated and take you right then and there if he sees you on the bed naked.

You think about that as you head to the bathroom to take a shower, sighing happily. Your hand is creeping toward your bulge, but once the cold water hits your body you have to spend a few seconds shivering before you can think about anything else. You don't actually mind the cold water, but it's such a change in temperature from otherwise it screws with your head.

You wash the product out of your hair first, it's been in there so long and so messed up from Dirk pulling your shirt up over your head and then you sleeping with it in it's stuck at odd positions, stiffly clinging to messiness. You crush that with burning hot water, and decide against washing your hair. You're too tired. You just have enough time to stand there, thinking about Dirk and how he felt in the shower with you, and how he'd feel standing with his front against your back, hand reaching around to let your bulge curl around it, smiling with his chin resting on your shoulder, you leaning into him and feeling his dick hard against your ass and turning your head to kiss him, moaning as he strokes your bulge and crumbling into him as he kisses your neck and tongues your gills.

A slurry of genetic material splatters onto the floor of the shower and you whine a little, one hand helping your bulge along and the other bracing yourself with the shower wall. Fuck. It's a good thing that he wasn't in the shower with you, that's sort of embarrassing. Of course, it's better than someone that doesn't actually like you being the object of your fantasies, because you have to completely imagine what it'd be like with them. Like what it would be like in the shower with Meenah. You'd be behind her, or maybe you'd be facing each other, watching the water drip from her fins and onto her shoulders, running down and-

Okay. Okay, no. You're not going to do this. Not only do you have no idea how she looks naked - you could guess, you could really guess - but if you managed to be in the shower with her she would probably stick you with the trident. Not that it hasn't stopped you from fantasizing before, of course, but it's different now that you have Dirk. You're not going to fantasize about the amazingly gorgeous Meenah Peixes when you have Dirk Strider.

Or if it was Latula, her hair sticking to her face and her flat stomach and her thin hips and her muscular, trim legs, not much in the chest department but what's there is perfect, just perfect for going up and-

Okay, no, Latula would probably just hit you, too. Or Mituna would be somewhere in the picture, wailing about not being able to take off his clothes and the only time that's a turn on is when it's someone saying that sensually, like, "Oh, I can't seem to be able to get my clothes off by myself. Would you like to... help me?" except in a way sexier way. Besides, you shouldn't have to fantasize about her either.

You decide that it's enough shower time and get out blowdrying your hair and drying yourself off with a towel, which you toss to the side of the room without a second thought. Your entire hive is messy, filled with dirty laundry and dirty towels and crumpled up pieces of paper and food spilled everywhere, but you can find everything, so it's basically okay.

You spend a few minutes digging through piles of dirty laundry to find your glasses and then pick out a few movies to marathon. Ah, yes. Grease, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Cry-Baby... hell, maybe you'll watch Stand By Me, too, even though that's not as good as the others. All of the kids are like five sweeps, so it's a little weird, but some of the older guys are pretty hot, and you're pretty sure one of them was in The Lost Boys, which you would totally watch if you could find your copy.

You wrap yourself up in a blanket, shivering a little, and press play on Grease. It might be a long day, but you're sure as hell not going to spend it doing anything productive.

* * *

**this actually has like nothing of importance in it i'm sorry it's super a filler chapter it's such a filler chapter but next chapter some fun things should be happening**


	15. Chapter Fifteen: Cronus

You're halfway through Rumble Fish when Dirk appears, irritated and in his godtier outfit. You pause the movie and prop yourself up on your elbows, watching him as he shucks his top and slumps down on the bed next to you. You lean into him, wriggling as close as you can and draping an arm around his shoulders. He doesn't exactly wave you off, but he doesn't do anything, either, and it kind of annoys you. You kiss his neck, hoping to elicit some sort of favorable response, but he just shakes you off.

"Bad day?" you ask, and he sighs, nodding.

"Sorry I'm being such an asshole about it, it's just been stressful lately," he says, and you can think of more than one way he can relieve that stress, but something in his face tells you not to mention it.

But when has that ever stopped you before?

Of course, he could leave you if you get too annoying.

But _fuck_, you're so sexually frustrated and him lying there with his shirt off isn't exactly helping matters.

He looks at you again, then glances at your ass. "You're naked," he says.

"Yeah," you say. He doesn't say anything else and you figure you should probably explain. "I mean, I usually watch movies naked or without much on, and also I was thinking that if you came in and saw me naked you'd be overcome with lust or something and-"

"Except your adorable glasses," he says.

Shit. You always forget. You're going to burn those things.

You reach up to take them off, but he grabs your wrist before you can and then he kisses you, slow and beautiful and deep, and you fucking melt. You slump into him, moaning as he continues kissing you, your mouth, your neck, your chest, each kiss slow and deliberate and meaningful. His hand goes down to your bulge, which has been going wild since he's gotten back but has just picked up a new level of productivity.

He moves his mouth back up to your face and lets go of your wrist, pushing hair back away from your forehead and kissing you there again, his hand still stroking and touching your bulge. You reach up to clutch his hair in your hands, keeping him trapped. Somehow both of you got to be sitting up, and you keep trying to get closer to him, closer to his beautiful body and his beautiful face and the beautiful way he keeps kissing you. You wriggle your way onto his lap, wrapping your legs around his waist and forcing his hand out of there. That may have been a bad move on your part, but when he uses that hand to get rid of his pantaloons and underwear you're glad you did. He pushes you onto your back and kisses your neck, tonguing your gills and nipping ever-so-slightly at your fins and your moans get louder and louder than they've ever been before, which is really an accomplishment because you're so loud it's embarrassing. You arch your back, pressing yourself as far against him as you can get, and then you feel his dick at the entrance of your nook and you push yourself onto him, feeling his strange, inflexible human dick in your nook and loving it. It's so different from a bulge and it's rougher and somehow more sincere. You pant, clutching his hair and shaking a little as he groans with his mouth pressed against your neck.

He gives your nook a break and slips his hand down toward your bulge, stroking and coercing the genetic material into coming out. You'd been a little worried about what he would think, but he doesn't say anything about the sticky purple that splatters him and the sheets. You feel like you should give him a blowjob or something, return the favor, but he isn't letting you up, his mouth is still pressed into your neck and his other hand is still tangled in your hair, keeping it away from your forehead. You want his dick back in your nook, you want his genetic material inside of you, and it's like he can read your mind because he goes back at it, and when he lets go inside of you it's like you're in heaven. You're loud, louder than ever before, arching yourself into his body and panting and moaning and whining. He's making small noises against your throat but other than that he's relatively quiet and you wonder how the hell he does it.

Both of you have finished up then and you wonder if you can keep going without it being forced. Apparently not, because he collapses right next to you and wraps an arm around you, kissing your temple. You wonder if he's going to say he loves you again. You wonder if you can say it back this time.

He doesn't say anything, though, just pulls the two of you off of the bed and into the shower. It's not as fun as last time, both of you are too tired and too stressed out (okay, he's tired and stressed, you're just not sure how to make it fun), but the two of you get cleaned up and when you get back the bedsheets are clean. Ah, the wonders of dreambubbles.

He pulls you into bed, and you curl into his chest like he's a shield. He takes off your glasses and puts them on the bedside table, along with his own, and then spends a few minutes stroking your hair before the two of you drift off. Before you eventually do drift off, however, you think that the next time he says that he loves you, you'll be able to say it back without getting flustered.

But he has to say it first.

* * *

**this is short wow usually the chapter part is at least a thousand words but i'm like five hundred words behind that tonight jesus christ aurora slacking aren't we i don't think it's even going to be a thousand with the author's note oh nope there it goes**


	16. Chapter Sixteen: Dirk

Your name is Dirk Strider and you think that Cronus Ampora asleep with his head nestled in your chest is probably the most adorable thing ever.

You were stressed last night, you'll admit, and you're still a little stressed, but you're going to try to not let that affect your relationship with Cronus. You fucked him last night because you could tell that he wanted you to and, hell, you did too when you popped in there and saw him naked, sprawled out on the bed with his hair falling over his forehead and his glasses on. Christ, he's adorable with his glasses. Almost like a sort of... troll Harry Potter, scars and everything.

He murmurs a little in his sleep and snuggles closer to you, and you drape an arm over his body. He blinks his eyes open and looks up at you sleepily. "Dirk?" he yawns. "Oh. Hi."

"Hey," you say. "Have a nice sleep?"

"Mhm," he says. He looks sort of nervous. You wonder why. He's not very good at hiding his emotions, you've realized, and he's always a little worried about what he's doing in this relationship. You don't know why. Sure, he's horny basically all the time and can be a little selfish, but it's not like he's a bad boyfriend. Sometimes it feels like he just wants you for the sex, but he doesn't outright push you away when you try to be cute with him, and you can carry on a conversation with him.

"Want to stay in today?" you ask him, and he shrugs.

"I don' care," his voice is a little slurred; he's still half-asleep and it's adorable. "Can we fuck?"

You smile. "Only if you don't grease your hair and wear your glasses." He tenses up. "Not that I don't think the greaser look is sexy, because it's sexy as hell, but with your hair down and the glasses you're fucking adorable."

"I look stupid," he says. "And it reminds me of my totally tragic backstory."

"And what is this tragic backstory?" you ask, a little curious. From the way he acted, you would've thought that the most tragic thing in Cronus Ampora's life was not being able to get any action before you came along. He sighs.

"Well, long story short, magic is a huge fucking disappointment and doesn't even work right when you want it too and I'm not destined for anything, great or otherwise."

Well, sounds like he really was troll Harry Potter.

Albeit one who sucked at being Harry Potter.

You don't press it, because it looks like he doesn't want to talk anymore and you don't want to piss him off this early in the day. You usually end up doing it sooner or later, offending him in some way, or maybe he'll piss you off accidentally but he apologizes right away, and then usually gives you a blowjob like he's scared that you'll run the first chance you get. You think it's kind of sad, actually. The blowjobs are nice, though. He's careful, because of his, you know, razor-sharp teeth, he has to be _really_ careful, but god damn is he good with his tongue.

In a few moments he's asleep again, and you decide that you'll get up and make breakfast. You manage to wriggle away from him without him waking up again, cleverly replacing your body with a pillow, and then think up some clothes - a t-shirt and boxers, as well as your shades, of course - and head to the kitchen.

His kitchen actually isn't very well stocked, but the magic of dreambubbles help out here and soon you're cooking up some chocolate-chip pancakes. It's been _forever_ since you've made these.

About five minutes after you start cooking, Cronus stumbles downstairs, hair a mess and boxers only half-on. You lean over to tug them up, and he winks at you. You roll your eyes and go back to your cooking.

"What are you making?" he asks. You flip a pancake effortlessly before answering.

"Chocolate chip pancakes."

He grabs one off of the plate you've been stacking them on and takes a cautious bite. His face lights up. "Wow," is all he says, and soon that first one is gone and there goes another one.

"They're better if you slow down," you advise. "So that you can actually taste them. And if you put some whipped cream on them, they're pretty goddam close to perfection."

He takes the hint and grabs a plate out of the cupboard, throwing about four pancakes onto it and scooping about half a container of whipped cream on top. You laugh a little, and then finish up the rest of the batter. There are around five pancakes left. You figure that you can eat that much. He's sort of eyeing them, though, so you only take four, as well as half of the rest of the whipped cream. The two of you eat in silence, him finishing five minutes before you, even though he has one more than you and has already eaten two.

He has some whipped cream on his nose. You get to be cutesy. Fucking awesome.

You lean over to him and kiss it off his nose, your tongue flicking out to taste it. He turns violet, and you smirk at him. "You had something on your face."

He scrapes a little bit of whipped cream container and rubs it on your neck, then kisses it off, using copious amounts of tongue.

"You had something on your neck."

You grab some to retaliate, glopping it over his collarbone. You're a little rough with this one, because you know he loves it when you suck and nip at his collarbone. He whines deep in his throat, clutching your arm.

You pull away the whipped cream container from his outstretched hands and kiss him once more on the lips. "That's enough of that," you say, even though you sort of want to keep doing it but you can't just fuck all day you have to... do something other than that, right?

Apparently, Cronus doesn't think so, because his face screws up in a slightly annoyed expression and shit you pissed him off.

"Fine, we can keep going," you relent, and he brightens, grabbing the container back from you and yanking your shirt off, smearing some on your nipple, licking and sucking long after it's gone. You have to keep a hand on the table to keep your balance. Once he's done, he grins at you and you yank the whipped cream back, taking the majority of what's left and spreading it out along one of his hipbones. You treat it the same as his collarbone; a little rougher than usual but he loves it just the same, his hips bucking and his mouth making those wonderful noises.

From the look on his face, you're pretty sure that he's going to win this round.

When he yanks down your boxers and traces the last of the whipped cream onto your dick you know for a fact that he's going to win this round.

He slips his mouth around your dick and licks the whipped cream off with that amazing, magical tongue, and sucks and teases and _oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck._

When he's done, he stands up, wipes off his mouth with the back of his hand, kisses you quickly, and skips off to take a shower.

You pull up your underwear and watch him go, watching his ass especially, god damn it he definitely won that round.

* * *

**i actually have absolutely no plot at all for this can you tell over 20k and nothing important at all has happened**


	17. Chapter Seventeen: Dirk

You take a shower after he's done, and, like usual, he's on you as soon as you leave the bathroom. You're not really in the mood though, and this sort of pisses him off, but he'll get over it.

"So, did you think up a better plan for the day?" you ask, and he sighs heavily, blowing out a puff of air that pushes his bangs out of his eyes for a second.

"Well, if you're not in the mood for anything fun, I might as well just go grease my hair," he says. Yep. He's pissed. You watch him go into the bathroom, just in a t-shirt and underwear. He was planning on greasing his hair, you know it. If he wasn't he wouldn't have put that shirt on. Maybe he's not actually pissed. Maybe he's just pretending so that you'll feel bad about not wanting to mess around twenty-four-seven.

You wonder if there's anyone hanging around outside that you could talk to. You're a little bored, and you know from experience that Cronus is going to be in the bathroom for a while... you could pop outside for a second and see, right?

Nevertheless, you write out a note to tape to his TV. "Went outside for a breath of air. Probably not far." After a few moments of contemplating this, you decide to add a third sentence fragment. "Might get some action if you find me."

There you go. That gives you a little bit of room to wander, too, so you won't be bored standing right outside his hive. You tape it onto the TV and decide to go with your non-godtier outfit for the day, because you look fucking stupid in your godtier outfit and you don't want to scare everyone away with how fucking stupid you look.

You slip outside as quietly as you can, because if Cronus hears you leave he'll be more freaked out than he will be when he steps out of the bathroom and sees that you're gone. You debate going back in and getting rid of the note and just pretending that you'd never thought of going outside, but scrap that idea in about two seconds. You do need some air. And he'll probably forgive you since you promised makeouts. Yeah, you'll be fine.

It takes a while before you run into anyone, and the first person you run into is that creepy clown-mime troll. You nod to him, he nods back, and you continue on your way. A few feet away from him are a few more trolls, both with skateboards, a girl and a boy. The girl looks up at you and grins.

"Dude! Totally rad shades," she says, and you nod.

"Thanks," you say, and she grins wider.

"You're Cronus's guy, right? Man, I _never_ thought he'd get laid!"

The boy troll with the helmet yells something that sounds vaguely like "He's an asshole", but between the lisp and the overall shittiness of coherency, you can't be totally sure. You're _pretty_ sure, though.

"Tuna's right! He's totes an asshole. But man, good job! You've got him to stop bothering me, at least," she says, and you decide to leave them alone for the time being. You wave, and she waves back, and he yells something weird that you can't really understand, and you keep walking. You wonder if all of the trolls here are as fucked up as the ones you know. You should probably get their names. Kan... something... was red sweater, you think, and that's really all you remember. The Rufio-looking one was actually named Rufioh, you think.

But you don't actually care what any of their names are, because the only one you really care about is Cronus.

You nearly trip over some sort of stuffed animal and get jolted back into thinking about what's actually going on. You look down at the stuffed animal, wondering why the hell it's here if all of the trolls look to be around nineteen.

"Oh... Sorry, I sort of left that lying around..."

Rufioh passes you and picks up the stuffed animal, laughing awkwardly.

"Can't play any fiduspawn without a host plush, you know?"

"Uh," you say, looking at him clutch the stuffed animal like a five year old. "What's fiduspawn?"

"Totally great game, I play it all the time... Horuss used to say it was childish... now he doesn't complain much... doesn't say much about anything at all, except how perfect we are for each other and how much he likes me... sort of freaks me out, to be honest... I wish I knew how to break up with him without hurting his feelings..." he trails off, clutching the stuffed animal even tighter. He changes the subject abruptly. "Have you seen my lusus around? Little bull with wings, you know... his name's Tinkerbull..."

You shake your head and goddam if that isn't the weirdest thing you've ever heard. He sighs.

"Damn... usually I'll go talk to my lusus if I'm feeling down... hope Damara didn't take him again, that was bad last time..."

You really don't know what to say. You have not seen this small fairy bull abomination, you do not want to play therapist for this Rufioh guy, but you'd feel bad just leaving him here, so you decide to change the subject.

"So, what other things do you like?" you ask, and he rubs the side of his head, thinking.

"Well... troll anime's pretty cool... how I met Damara, actually, which sort of makes it less cool... she wasn't so bad, really, but she totally overreacted with the whole Horuss thing... well, actually, no, that was pretty bad, too..."

You decide to focus on the 'anime' part of what he said, and not the relationship problems part of it. From what you've heard in these few minutes of talking to him, he seems to have the problem of too many love interests. Total opposite of your greaserfish.

"I like anime," you say, and he looks at you with an interest he definitely did not have before.

"Ah, yeah, the shades... I can see it... that's cool, nobody else really who likes that sort of thing except, you know, Damara..."

Your (presumably) incredibly long discussion about anime gets cut off by someone pouncing on your back. It's Cronus. You can smell the hair grease.

"Hey, Cro," you say, reaching back to grab his legs and putting his full weight on you. He squeaks a little, but lets it happen. "You found me."

"I was scared for a little bit there," he admits, hooking his arms around your neck. "I thought you'd run off on me."

Rufioh feels awkward, but his exit is less awkward than you'd expected; he just mutters a goodbye and leaves, saying something about going to go put away the host plush. Cronus is beginning to get heavy, and you squat to let him get down. He gets off of you, and when you stand back up he kisses you full on the lips, wrapping his arms around your neck. You put your hands on his hips and gently push him away, and he scowls.

"You said we could..."

"Yeah, be patient," you say, grinning. He doesn't look too happy about it, but he relents. You sit down at the base of a tree and he sits beside you, leaning his head on your shoulder as well as he can with the combination of horns and hair. You take a hold of his hand and he blushes a little. You're probably blushing, too, because you're such an awkward fuck you wouldn't doubt it.

You sit there like that for a while, just sitting, enjoying the silence. By a while you mean about seven minutes before he starts getting a little anxious. "You okay?" you ask, and he nods, but you're pretty sure he's just doing that because he doesn't want to admit that he's horny as fuck. Which you already know he is, because he is every goddam minute of every goddam day.

"We can make out later, I promise," you say, giving his hand a squeeze. He nods. You wonder if there are any other trolls around that you can talk to. Hopefully sane ones.

Which is probably hard to find, given Cronus's little group of friends, but the skateboarder girl didn't seem too bad, and neither did Rufioh... you briefly wonder where the younger Condescension is, because she seemed cool, too. But that doesn't really matter. The two of you will be fine all by yourself.

Still, it would be cool to talk to some other people. You still want to get in contact with the younger version of your Bro, even though you feel a little nervous about that, too. What if he thinks you're a total asshole? What if he hates you? What if he's an asshole?

You wonder if you could talk about this sort of thing with Cronus. He had to meet a younger version of his ancestor, right? Wasn't that a thing that they did?

"Hey," you say, and he glances at you. "You met a younger version of your ancestor, right?"

"My dancestor, yeah," he says. "Eridan Ampora."

"How was that?"

He thinks a little bit, chewing on his cigarette. "Well," he says. "I think he was a little disappointed in what I turned out to be like, but it's not like he was even any better, with his stupid wizard getup, but some versions of us hooked up and I don't know how that went, but it's a thing that definitely happened. I should talk to that godtier Cronus, actually... damn, he's smooth..."

You laugh a little, and hope that no alternate versions of yourself has hooked up with an alternate version of your kid Bro. He's not bothered at all by the fact that him and his little ancestor went out, but you kind of are, and you really hope that that did not happen to any alternate versions of you _or_ kid Bro.

"So, he was pretty cool, then?" you ask, and Cronus nods slowly.

"He was okay."

It's quiet, and you can't help but think that he's pissed at you. He probably is. Usually, if you're not making out or watching a movie, he's talking so much that you swear you could walk away and he wouldn't notice. God damn it, you keep fucking this up.

You scoot a little closer to him and he looks at you. He looks sort of nervous. You bring a hand up to cup his face and kiss him, and he squeaks and blushes. You're never going to get over how adorable he is when he's not being a douchebag. His hand comes up to yours for a second, then drops to your leg. You keep kissing him; his mouth is open automatically, of course, why even bother with the chaste, fairy tale kisses when you could get to making out right away. You slip your tongue into his mouth, because it's what he wants, and when he's making those adorable noises and pressing himself up against you like that, really, who could resist? Your hand drops to his shoulder, and you let it trail down his arm, eventually lying to rest on his hip. Your tongues are going at it while his hand creeps further and further up toward your crotch, and despite your initial premonitions about this being a bad idea, really, it's pretty great, and-

And then a whistle blows and the two of you jump, him nearly biting off your tongue and you nearly badly bruising his hip.

Standing before you is the troll with the red sweater.

Cronus grimaces. "Hey, Kankri," he says. "I'm kind of having a private moment, here-"

"Cronus, I'm not too fond of you thinking that, as soon as you get a matesprit, you can do whatever you want, wherever you want. Must I remind you that there are still several of us here that do not have a matesprit, either by choice or not getting along with others, and you flaunting your human around like that does _not_ make their struggle any easier."

"But he helps me feel more human," Cronus says. He's giving Kankri puppy-dog eyes and god damn if it isn't the most adorable thing you've ever seen. Kankri, though, is apparently not very happy with being interrupted.

"While I do commend your humankin efforts, it is still incredibly problematic..."

You stop listening then, leaning back against the tree and wondering when Kankri will leave.

* * *

**and here you go two thousand word chapter because i missed yesterday**


	18. Chapter Eighteen: Dirk

By the time Kankri shuts up, you swear you've fallen asleep and woken up about three times. Cronus hasn't even yawned, from what you can tell, which is pretty commendable. You wonder how he does it.

Kankri does eventually shut up, however, cocking his head to the side like a dog and disappearing. It's really amazing how he does that. "He probably caught wind of something triggering happening," Cronus says, stretching his back. You watch him stretch, watching his thin, slightly scrawny back move under his t-shirt. The t-shirt he's wearing is slightly see-through, which you're pretty sure he did on purpose, but a little big for him, too, which is just adorable. Maybe so that he can get it over his horns? You're not sure.

You rub his back as he stretches forward, and he leans into your touch with a purr. "Better not let this turn into anything or he'll be back," you say, and he sighs. You rub his back a little more, using two hands to give him a full-on massage, and he just plain fucking loves it. You smile a little. "We'll be in deep shit if that happens. I might even be able to sneak in a few more naps."

"You were _sleeping?_" he asks, twisting his head to give you a horrified look. You grin at him. "Well, I guess he couldn't tell with your shades and all. I'm used to his lectures, really, when there's only one person that will stick around for more than the minimum time needed to get away, you get used to their little personality quirks."

"Personality quirks?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. He nods. "I think that's less of a quirk and more of an entire personality."

"Whatever," he says, dismissing the subject entirely. "You were talking to Rufioh, huh?"

"Yeah," you say, working your hands over his lower back. "We were talking about anime."

"I thought you liked that sort of thing," he says. "Your sunglasses."

"Yep," you say. It's true. The shades look anime. Your hair looks slightly anime. There's only so much actual people on TV that one can stand, being all alone. Cartoon people are so much better when you're utterly and horribly alone in the world.

Apart from Roxy, but it's not like she was actually with you, in the flesh. You had to talk to her over the messenger just like Jake and Jane. Once the game started, you didn't have to watch it as much. Kind of a shame, really; you'd sort of missed it. But this was a hell of a lot better than just being curled up at home after a long day of... well, making sure Jake didn't get into as much shit as he usually did, and taking your infinite showers, and working on robots, and rewriting pony literature, and important stuff like that, even if you did get to watch a shit-ton of anime.

"What're you thinking about?" he asks, turning completely to look at you. The two of you are sitting knee to knee like a couple of kindergartners. You, feeling cutesy again, lean over and kiss his forehead.

"How fucking cute you are," you say, even though it's a total lie and you were totally thinking about anime. He blushes a little, but still tries to make you kiss him on the mouth. Like always. "Hey, we don't want Mister Teleportation to come back."

He laughs a little. "It is weird how he does that, isn't it? I mean, like who even can hear that far to be able to even get over there that fast? I haven't really thought about it much before, because mostly I'm focused on other stuff, like getting someone to actually not reject me for once-"

"Which is me," you add in, and he nods, then keeps talking. Yep. He's gonna be talking for a while. You know, you really know how this guy and Kankri are friends. Neither of them shut up.

"Yeah, right, that's you, but anyway, I never really thought about how weird that was. I can't teleport wherever I want. Like, back before you came along and I was still into everyone, and I knew that Meenah was elsewhere, I couldn't just go teleport over there to hit on her! I had to walk all the way to go hit on Rufioh, which was horrible in the way of me nearly getting my neck broken but also awesome because that's where you showed up, and when Mituna's overreacting about everything and Kurloz or Latula shows up, I can't just teleport away because something 'triggering' is happening, I have to _run_ to get away from that."

You have absolutely no idea who half of the trolls he was just talking about are, but that's okay. You just nod. You've realized that you if you just nod while he's talking, he won't get pissed. It works. What he says half the time is bullshit, or him being a douche, but it's entertaining and cute in its own way.

"So, how exactly is this Mituna guy overreacting? Is that the one I'm pretty sure is menta-"

He jumps on you, clamping a hand over your mouth, his face extremely close to yours. "Don't... say... a word," he says, speaking in a very low, slow tone. You nod. You're a little freaked out. "I don't know if Kankri'll come back, because he doesn't seem to like Tunaboy any more than anyone should, which is not at all, he's an asshole, but I don't want you getting on Kurloz's bad side, either."

You push his hand away to answer. He's on top of you now and it's really distracting, but you manage to ignore it for a long enough time to say something. "Creepy mime clown, right?"

He nods. "He hates me. I don't even know _why_, I compliment him, and I don't hit on Meulin when he's around, and overall I'm just a super-nice guy, but he hates me."

"Didn't you just say that he hates you because of the whole Mituna thing?" you ask. He sighs.

"Well, maybe, okay, but I'm not going to treat Mituna in a special way just because of his... little problem. It's stupid," he sighs, then slumps into your chest. You let yourself lay back on the grass, feeling his weight on your chest and his legs tangled in yours, and it's nice. He's not trying to go for your dick, at least not yet, and he's not pissed at you, so, really, it's perfect.

It's just perfect.

* * *

**this is sort of short but you know i don't even know why not talk about kankri for no real reason whatsoever**


	19. Chapter Nineteen: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and _damn_, your matesprit is comfortable.

Like, seriously. You're nearly falling asleep over here, curled up on his chest. It doesn't help that you're sort of tired anyway, from having to track him down. You didn't know where to look, and you asked around, but nobody would really take you seriously about the two of you actually being in a relationship, even though you've been pretty public about your affection for each other.

Maybe all of his cutesy stuff made it seem more like moirails than matesprits.

No... Rufioh and Horuss walked in on the two of you making out that one time. They should _know_.

He shifts and you roll off of him, collapsing onto the grass. He nudges you with his arm. "What?" you ask, turning to look at him. He just smiles at you and it's sort of infuriating. "Seriously, Dirk, what?"

"Nothing," he says, taking your hand in his hand rubbing the back of it with his thumb. "Just looking at you."

You blush a little, because the cutesy stuff still sort of freaks you out and it's a little weird, even though you're not very experienced in the way of sexual intercourse apart from what you've done with Dirk (or anything sexual, really), you're way more comfortable with that than all the cute stuff. It's way more attention than you've ever gotten and while it's really, really nice, it's still really, really different. You keep expecting him to say that it's a joke any second now and just leave you.

"Oh," is all you manage, and look away. He keeps a hold on your hand, tracing little circles on the back of it with his thumb and you wonder if you should be turned on right now because you totally are. You have to make a conscious effort to move your tongue. "Do you want to head back to my hive?"

You look back at him and fuck you're screwing this up. He's just sort of looking at you, eyebrow raised, and you wish you would've maybe waited a little bit before asking. Sure, he promised that you'd get some action if you found him, and that was a while ago, but he's in a cute mood and probably doesn't want to fuck god damn it you suck at this.

"Sure," he says, and you sit up. Wow. You did not expect that. He sits up, slowly, and he has some grass in his hair. You lean over to brush it out, how fucking soft his hair is not escaping your notice. Like. Wow. The two of you are really close, too, which is sort of freaking you out because no matter how many times you are in the same general area as Dirk Strider you never seem to get over it. He just lets you brush the grass from his hair, watching you.

And then he stands up, pulling you up with him and into his arms. This isn't the first time he's done this and it still freaks you out. You're scared he's going to drop you or something. Sure, you're scrawny, but you've got to be heavy. You cling to his neck. The ground seems so far _away_.

"Aren't I too heavy?" you ask.

"Nope," he says, adjusting his grip on you. You're still really turned on, by the way. That didn't stop being a thing that was happening or anything. Of course, you're turned on three-fourths of your waking moments and half of your sleeping ones, so it's really nothing new. "You're skinny."

"I know," you mutter, but that sounded wrong. Shit. Uh. You can save it. "But I have to be sort of heavy, right? I mean, yeah, you're _built_, but you can't be totally immune to fatigue."

"Cro," he says, kissing you on the lips. You try to make it last longer than he does, which gets sort of awkward, but this sort of thing always happens and both of you are used to it. You wish you wouldn't stop fucking things up, though. It's not like he's totally free of any fucking things up, either, because he's made you feel shitty more than once, and when he doesn't want to make out it frustrates you a little, but still. You fuck things up more than he does. Wait. Shit, he was talking.

Maybe if you catch on to the end you'll know what he was saying.

"...not that heavy."

You decide not to answer him, just in case. You just rest your head on his shoulder, making sure not to hit him in the face with your horns. Those stupid things are always getting in the way. They're really inconvenient. You still really wish that you could be human, but if that's too much to wish for, you wish you had stubby horns like Kankri.

He walks the two of you back to your hive. You keep your eyes closed and your arms hooked around his neck, but you can hear them all talking. They think he's just joking around, that he's going to string you along until he gets sick of you and then he's going to dump you, because, hell, who would want to stick around you for longer than necessary? He saw you nearly getting killed by Horuss and took pity, that's all, and he felt too bad to leave you. You're like Mituna, he doesn't actually like you, he's just pretending because he feels sorry for you.

You don't know that you're shaking until you get back to your hive and he sets you on the bed. He looks worried. "Are you okay?"

You clutch yourself, shaking. You don't know if they even said that or if you just made it up or if it's all true or if none of it's true, but it's really fucking with your head now and you don't know what to do. You shake your head, not trusting yourself to talk. He crouches down and puts his hands on your shoulders, looking you straight in the eye.

"Seriously, what's wrong?"

You shake your head again. You'll be fine. You can get over it. You've ignored them before, when you were _sure_ they were saying shit, but now for some reason it's not working. Ignoring your problems has always worked _before_, why the hell isn't it now? You swallow. He doesn't know what's going on, but he hugs you, and you fucking crumble.

You crumble into him, still shaking, not crying, no, definitely not crying, and he just holds you. Your back's against your bed and he's still crouching and that has to be uncomfortable but for some reason he's not trying to move into a more comfortable position.

After a few minutes, he kisses you. One of the deep ones. One of the ones that you're not sure how to feel about. "I love you," he says. His voice is a little quiet, but he says it and you're blushing violet and still shaking but fuck you were going to try to say it back this time weren't you?

"L-love you too," you manage to choke out, and he hugs you tighter to himself, crushing you against his chest. You wrap your arms around him, feeling the shaking subside a little bit as you try to get a fucking hold on yourself.

You'll be fine. You'll totally be fine. You just need to keep on ignoring your problems.

* * *

**god damn it i love writing this**


	20. Chapter Twenty: Cronus

You don't really remember what happened yesterday after you saying that you loved him. It must not have been anything good, then, because if it had you would remember it. He's sleeping, and you're curled into him, his arm wrapped protectively around you. You're kind of squished, actually, your knees pulled up to your chest. You're naked apart from your underwear, which is _weird_, usually you sleep naked...

Wait, didn't you guys watch a movie he wanted you to? You must have fallen asleep. What was it, some sort of... you had to read subtitles, which sucked, and the people sounded kind of like Damara, but despite being gory and disturbing, it was sort of boring. Yeah. That's probably why you fell asleep.

But you don't wear underwear while you're _awake_ half the time, did he just dig around in your closet until he found underwear, then undressed you and put you in them?

You distract yourself from this weird phenomenon by looking at him, because he's in just his underwear, too. It still amazes you how muscular he is, how tight and beautiful and toned his body is, from his arms to his abs to his legs. You _love_ it. You sort of wish that you looked like that, too, instead of the scrawny bastard you are, but, then again, he wouldn't be able to carry you like he does if you weren't scrawny.

He sighs in his sleep, but he's not awake yet and you figure he won't be up for another few hours. You wonder what you should do. Maybe you should get up and shower, get ready, grease your hair, maybe try your hand at cooking him breakfast like he did for you yesterday. Yeah, that was fun. Yesterday's breakfast was really fun.

You manage to roll your way out of his embrace, and he just rolls onto his stomach, mumbling into a pillow. You smile a little, just looking at him for a few minutes. He's so goddam _beautiful_. You wish you looked more like him, pink skin and all - sure, you'd take the muscles any day, but you'd be fine with your scrawny ass if you had the pink skin and the hair that wasn't black and the no horns and the no fins and the _not_ razor sharp teeth. You wish you had bright red blood and 'parents' and a 'house' with your 'husband', which would be Dirk, preferably... unless he was a wife? You're still not quite sure on how 'marriage' worked. You think he'd be your husband if you got human married. You have no idea.

You decide that what you're thinking about is stupid and head to the bathroom. You don't even think about Latula or Meenah or _anyone_ besides Dirk while you jack off in the shower, which you think is pretty impressive. It probably helps that you haven't really talked to anyone besides Dirk in a while, at least about anything that mattered.

Not that you really managed to talk to either of them before for any period of time before they left, but you didn't have Dirk Strider back then, either.

Greasing your hair takes a while. You want it to look good. Maybe the two of you can do something fun today. Both in the _fun_ sense and the fun sense. Maybe you can have a picnic and then make out afterward. Maybe you can watch a movie - of your choosing, you don't think you can sit through more creepy human kids murdering each other - and then make out afterward. Maybe you can go for a walk to a secluded place where you can make out.

Yeah... making out sounds really good about now.

You finish up with your hair and stare at yourself in the mirror for a few seconds, trying out a smirk. It doesn't look right. Huh. Where's your cigarette? You fish around in the cabinet and find one. Alright. Now it looks good. You look great. Great job, Cronus, you look _hot_. Strider won't be able to resist you, that's for sure. You give the mirror a wink. Yeah. You're as sexy as you're ever going to be, which is pretty damn sexy, if you do say so yourself.

Alright. You think that the picnic is the best idea. You're hungry already, and if you have a picnic... outside, behind a tree, maybe, where you can kiss without being interrupted, and if Kankri interrupts you, you can distract him with a shiny new whistle. He can be bought, you can just give me a new whistle and point him in the direction of someone doing something triggering and he'll be _gone_.

You think about that while you find a basket and some stuff to put in it. Chips, right? He liked those chips. Some soda. Not Faygo. Definitely not Faygo. Nope. Just some off-brand shit that you found lying around. You should probably make some sandwiches. You have peanut butter... ooh, you have some sort of meat, too. You're not sure which kind, but it might taste good with peanut butter. You make one for yourself and try it out. Not bad. You'll make more of those.

Now what? Dessert?

You dig around for _something_ to use as dessert, and come up with a box of those shitty store-bought cookies that taste like heaven. These ones have pink frosting. Festive.

Satisfied with your picnic basket, you turn around to run straight into Dirk, still shirtless and half-asleep. His shades aren't on, either, which you think is awesome. His eyes are freaking sexy.

"Wha's this?" he mutters. You grin at him.

"Our plans," you say. "Wake up a little, then we can go."

He kisses you sloppily and then heads off to take a shower. It'll be another three hours before gets out, probably, just enough time for you to watch a short movie. The Outsiders should do. The universe needs more human Matt Dillon, you think as the movie gets started. As well as human Rob Lowe, but, man, Matt Dillon is one sexy human.

* * *

**i don't even know what i'm doing anymore**


	21. Chapter Twenty-one: Cronus

He's out of the shower before The Outsiders is done, but he just sits down next to you, putting an arm around your waist and pushing his face into your shoulder. You smile, and then Matt Dillon gets shot down and you stop smiling. The rest of the movie is, as always, heartbreaking and horrible, but since you've watched it so many times it's not that bad.

Once the ending credits roll around, Dirk stands up, pulling you up with him. "So, about those plans?" he asks, and you start smiling again. "I saw some more knock-off troll Doritos in that basket, they better be for me to eat."

You nod, not quite trusting yourself to talk, and wriggle your way out of his embrace and head for the kitchen. You grab the basket off the counter - _shit_, this thing is heavy - and hand it to him. "We're going to have a picnic and then make out. It's definitely going to be great."

"The making out or the picnic?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. You turn slightly violet.

"The making out," you say, and he laughs a little. "Of course, the picnic will be perfect, too, why wouldn't it be? There's literally everything you need for a good picnic. There's food, and drinks, and snacks-"

He kisses you to shut you up and you'd be lying if that wasn't what you were going for when you started talking and wouldn't shut up. True, you do it all the time. But until Dirk, nobody has actually kissed you to shut you up. Mostly they just left.

It's a great kiss, though, and you're still standing there in shock while he adjusts his grip on the basket and heads for the door. "You coming?" he asks, and you snap out of it and follow him, making sure that your hair looks good in the reflective surface of your refrigerator. Yep. It looks _great_.

You walk in silence, hands hooked together, until you make it far enough away from your hive to have a decent picnic. This area is also populated by Latula and Mituna, but since Dirk ignores them, you figure that you can, too. Dirk just sits down, back against a tree, and crosses his legs, then digs into the basket like the adorable human he is. He pulls out a can of soda, hands it to you, then grabs a can for himself.

Mituna scrambles over, falling over three times in the attempt, and parks himself in front of Dirk. "I want some!"

Dirk can't really understand him, but you can, so you sigh, grab another can of soda, and throw it to him. "Will you leave us alone now?"

He says something that even **you** can't understand, but Latula apparently could, because she glares at you. You sigh, glancing at Dirk. You are never going to get any action now. Dirk seems slightly amused by this - either that or slightly annoyed, you can't tell which.

"Seriously, leave us alone," you say, standing up. You let your soda fall to the ground, because you have a feeling that you're going to need both hands to protect yourself once Latula loses her temper. "We came here to have a picnic and maybe some sex, not to mess around with you and your inane ramblings. So get out of here."

Dirk makes a weird noise in the back of his throat and when you look back at him he's bright red. Oops. Maybe you shouldn't have said the part about the sex. Not that knowing you shouldn't have said something has ever stopped you before, though.

"I'm so-"

"No, no, shut up," you say, taking a step forward and forgetting entirely about Latula. "I don't need you to keep on saying that you're sorry, pulling up your stupid 'harmless little troll' act just because someone's calling you out on your shit. Frankly, it's really annoying and an idiot could see through it. You just keep putting on this act, just so tha- augh!"

That last part was you getting hit across the face with a skateboard, by the way. You stumble to the side, managing to keep your balance, and lift your arm to protect your face. Fuck. You need to keep an eye on where people are while you're chewing out Mituna.

Latula's standing in front of Mituna, breathing hard, holding her skateboard in front of her. She looks absolutely murderous.

Shit.

You grin through the blood leaking through your teeth and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. "Oh," you say. "I, uh, forgot you were standing there."

She takes another step toward you and you take a step back, crashing into something solid and warm and familiar.

"Alright," Dirk says, moving you behind him. You go willingly. You don't want Latula to hit you anymore, especially on the _face_. That's going to bruise. That's totally going to bruise. And _damn_ does it hurt.

"Look, you seem totes rad and I have noooo idea why you hang out with this douchebag, but if you don't get out of my way, like, right now I'm going to bash your fucking skull in," Latula says, switching from her 'rad girl' thing to something incredibly scary in a second. You swallow and hide behind Dirk as best you can.

"Alright," Dirk repeats, and for a fleeting second you think that he's going to stop talking there and throw you to the wolves. Or, in this case, Latula and quite possibly Kurloz once he gets wind of what's going on. "My boyfriend is an asshole sometimes."

"All the time," Latula corrects, but Dirk just keeps going.

"I think he got the point when you hit him across the face with your skateboard," Dirk says, and Latula's hands tighten over her skateboard. She's going to hit Dirk, you know she is, but you have no idea what to do about it or if you even could do anything about it. "I don't think you need to keep beating him senseless over a few goddam words, alright?"

"Kill him!" Mituna yells from the background, already over his 'sorry' thing.

Exactly what you were talking about. It's. All. An. Act.

...And then he says something that sounds like Kurloz and you really hope that he's just saying something totally stupid right now because the only place that Kurloz could be without you seeing him right now is right behind you.

You have a feeling that he's right behind you.

You turn slowly, coming face-to-face with Kurloz Makara.

Shit.

Right behind you.

* * *

**i don't know i was running out of time and it seemed like a good place to stop before tomorrow**


	22. Chapter Twenty-two: Dirk

Your name is Dirk Strider and facing down a troll with a skateboard over how big of an asshole your boyfriend actually is was not how you expected you'd be spending your day.

She hit him across the face and, yeah, maybe he sort of deserved it, but she looks like she wants to hit him over and over and over, and Mister Helmet isn't exactly helping any, what with his shouts of 'kill him' and some other nonsense that you can't understand. You feel sort of bad for thinking about someone who's obviously disabled like that, but... just because someone's mentally disabled doesn't mean that they can't be an asshole. It just means you should give them some slack sometimes. What Cronus was doing was wrong, and you sort of felt like smacking him yourself, but...

Cronus tugs on your arm. "Uh, Dirk," he says, his voice unnaturally high. "I think we have a problem. Like, a big one."

You turn away from Latula for a second.

Oh.

The clown-mime troll.

Cronus is scared, his hand up to his face, his other hand clenched into a fist. You remember him telling you how the clown troll freaked him out, and, to be honest, you really don't blame him.

"I'd rather face off Latula, if you don't mind," he continues, his voice still high. "At least I know she'll just beat me up and be done with it. I don't even _want_ to know what he's going to do to me."

The clown-mime - Kurloz, right? - does look murderous. He's kind of freaking you out, too.

You pull out your sword and wink at him.

"I can take them," you say. Latula, who has been pretty patient, considering, takes a step toward you. You point the sword in her direction. "Not a step closer. You smacked him across the face and maybe he deserved it, but you can knock it the hell off now. And you too, Maraca or whatever the fuck your name was. Latula took care of it, you can leave."

Latula looks like she's considering it, but Kurloz doesn't even blink. Cronus is still hiding behind you, but that's okay, because you've got this. You can handle it. It's really only Kurloz you have to deal with now, and that's just one guy.

The next few seconds happen almost faster than you can comprehend. Mituna darts in, grabs the basket, and when Cronus yells something and reaches for it, Latula's skateboard goes smashing into the back of his head and he crumbles. Kurloz is suddenly right in front of you, hand flashing out. You block with your arm, wincing a little. Damn, he's strong.

Cronus is groaning, twitching around on the ground, and Latula is sitting on his back, whacking him repeatedly. You take your attention away from the mime and pry her skateboard out of her hands and throw it toward Kurloz, who simply moves out of the way and keeps advancing. Latula simply uses her fists.

Shit, shit, shit, shit. Alright. First step, get Latula way from Cronus because she's currently doing the most damage. Knock her out maybe. Then take care of the mime.

You knock Latula off of Cronus, turning your back completely on the mime. She grimaces, looks at Cronus, and sighs. "Alright, coolkid, this is good enough for me," she says. Well, it only took her possibly giving him a concussion to satisfy her vengeful spirit. She leaves, collecting Mituna, the food, and her skateboard, and leaves.

You feel a tap on your shoulder.

You turn and oh fuck Kurloz is right there. He smiles, flips you off, aims a punch for your face. You throw up your sword to block it, taking a step backward and tripping over Cronus. He squeaks, twitching a little underneath you. Kurloz looms over you, the perfect image of horror. You swallow, trying to not admit that to yourself that he scares you. Really, Cronus has a reason to be terrified of this troll. He's fucking terrifying.

"Ku'lozz," Cronus mutters, trying to push himself up to his hands and knees. You roll off of him to kneel by his head, smoothing his hair back from his forehead, keeping an eye on the mime, who is just watching the two of you. You can't be sure, but you think he's smiling because he's thinking of all the ways he's going to creatively murder you. "Le'dirk alone."

Kurloz tilts his head to the side, looking you straight in the eye. You stare right back standing up and pointing your sword straight at his heart. You're going to get this fucker to leave Cronus alone if it kills you. He just smiles at you, reaches out, and grabs onto the blade of your sword.

You push it toward him as fast as you can, slicing through his palm and fingers and he just keeps smiling, holding onto the sword and reaching his other hand toward you. You grab onto his wrist, pulling it closer to you and pulling him onto your blade. He hangs on your sword like a rag doll, still smiling through his stitches, purple blood leaking out of his wound. You pull the sword out, and he sways on his feet, but he stays standing. Fuck these already-dead guys.

"Stop," Cronus says, still on the ground but sounding a bit stronger. You ignore him, stabbing Kurloz again.

This time when he's on your blade he grabs onto your hand with a grip far stronger than you would've thought possible. He twists, and your wrist cracks. You grit your teeth and keep shoving the blade into him. He keeps twisting your wrist and _fuck_ does it hurt _fuck_ you don't know if you'll be able to keep a hold on your sword much harder _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_.

You let go of the sword and his smile widens as much as possible. He pulls the sword out of his body, sticky with purple blood, and throws it to the side, advancing on you. You throw a punch for his face, but he ducks and _damn_ he's fast, lunging for you before you can so much as blink and knocking you back. You manage to grab a hold of his hand, shoving him backward and driving your shoulder into his chest. He manages to find a way to use this to his advantage, the fucker, and grabs onto your hair with his free hand, flinging you into the tree. Your head slams into it and everything goes a little fuzzy, but you can see enough to see Cronus make his way to his feet.

Huh.

Guy must have a hard head.

* * *

**makaras, man.**

**i sort of have an explanation on why kurloz just kept going when he got stabbed through the chest when cronus was down after being hit int he head with a skateboard, i'm throwing it on dreambubble logic and how kurloz doesn't give a fuck about being stabbed and how it's sort of headcanon that cronus is sort of living otu his death like he's still alive, which could sort of be based on something real if his reaction to meenah breaking the ahab's crosshairs is anything to go by but idk i was running out of time i needed **_**something**_


	23. Chapter Twenty-three: Dirk

The next few minutes are a blank for you. You remember Cronus screaming and blood in two different shades of purple _everywhere_, and you remember your wrist hurting like a bitch but that's feeling a bit better now. Dream bubble logic, probably. You don't know.

But now... your head has cleared and you can focus on what's going on. Kurloz is gone, leaving a trail of purple blood that stops abruptly at the edge of the clearing. Cronus is curled on his side, a few feet away from you. He's twitching a little, and he's abso-fucking-lutely covered in blood. You push yourself to your feet and head over to him. His hands are knotted in his hair and his eyes are squeezed shut as tightly as they can be, tears leaking out from under his eyelids. You touch him and flinches, curling himself into a tighter ball, his knees up to his chest. You reach for him again, and this time pick him up completely. He doesn't open his eyes but melts instinctively into your touch, shivering against the thin material of your t-shirt.

You begin the trek back to his hive, wondering how the hell a simple picnic turned into this. Your head hurts, your wrist hurts, and, worst of all, your boyfriend hurts. He's hurting a _lot_, and you have a feeling it's Kurloz you should be blaming. No, you know it's Kurloz. Latula possibly gave him a concussion, but Kurloz did _this_.

Once you get back to his house, you kick the door in and head up to the bedroom. You put him on his bed, then head to the bathroom to get a cloth to maybe clean him up a little bit and some bandaids, because he sure as hell looks like he needs it. He's loosened his body a little, enough for you to lift up his head and wipe blood off of his face. He opens one eye, and when he sees it's you he relaxes a bit. He sits up and lets you clean off his face, letting his hands fall from his hair and hugging himself. You swallow and continue wiping off his face. His lips, his nose... there's a cut under his eye that you dab, then smooth a bandaid on.

"Where else?" you ask. You know the back of his head must hurt, but you're not sure how to go about that and want to get everything else out of the way first.

He shrugs, and you touch the hem of his shirt.

"Can I look?" you ask. He nods, and you pull the shit up over his head and wince. He's bruised up. He's really bruised up. His back must be worse, but his chest is fucking _horrific_. There are a few cuts here, too, and you bandage them appropriately, then crawl onto the bed to take a look at his back.

You grimace and mutter a few words that may or may not be expletives under your breath.

"That bad, huh?" he croaks, and winces. "M-my head..."

"I know," you say, and you wash the blood off of his back as he hugs himself and shivers. Whether it's from the situation or the wet rag, you're not sure. "At least your gills are okay. For the most part."

"Yeah," he says, his voice a lot quieter than usual. He reaches up and touches the side of his neck. It's covered in blood. "Not here, though."

You take the rag there next, making sure to be careful. You wash it carefully, and, sure enough, one of his gills is seriously bleeding. It still is, actually. You press the rag to it, watching violet blood soak through. "Shit," you say. "Not there."

"It'll stop," Cronus says. He's back to hugging himself. "It always does. I'll heal and soon it'll be okay again. I just... I didn't think... I do worse stuff to Mituna, I mean, I'd barely gotten started... maybe it's because Latula was around, usually it's someone else who catches me, like Porrim or maybe Kankri, though he doesn't ever really do anything but bitch out Mituna for his helmet or something, I dunno... but I've done worse and gotten off lighter, is what I'm trying to say. Even if Latula or Kurloz catches wind of it... they don't..."

He's shaking and crying and you have no fucking clue what you're supposed to do. You pull a blanket from the bed and wrap it around his shoulders, and he slumps into it, burying his face into the fabric. You aren't sure if you should touch him or not. On one hand, he looks like he needs the comfort. On another... you don't know if you'd hurt him.

"Next time I'll do a better job of protecting you," you promise, and he looks at you, all bruises and tears and your beautiful little greaserfish. "I'm a little rusty, but that's no excuse for how shitty of a job I did. Next time his head will be _unattached_ from his body. Decapitation solves everything."

He laughs a little through his tears, leaning into you. You cautiously put an arm around his shoulders, and since it doesn't seem to hurt him you keep it there. "And Latula?" he mutters.

"She won't give you a concussion this time," you say. "I'll get her to cut it out before she beats the back of your head into oatmeal."

He nods, snuggling into your shoulder. "I just..." he sighs.

"Hey," you say. "We can talk about this when you're not all beat up. Right now let's just watch Grease and rest."

He nods, and while you figure you shouldn't be ignoring his problems, there's no use talking about them when he's this hurt. After Grease he'll be a hell of a lot happier and distracted and you can crush his happiness with talk about his problems.

On second thought, that doesn't actually sound like the best idea, but you already suggested it, so you're stuck with it now. Fuck you and your sucky ideas.

Either way, you get up for a second to pop in the DVD and the two of you cuddle in front of his bed, him letting you under the blanket and pulling it tight around the two of you. You keep an arm around him, pressing a kiss to his temple every so often. He's watching the movie with a rapt attention on his face you really only see when you're watching greaser movies, and god damn ignoring your problems has never felt so good.

* * *

**i love writing this fic god damn it**


	24. Chapter Twenty-four: Dirk

You don't bring up the incident for the rest of the day. He falls asleep early, and you have supper ready for him when he wakes up. It's chicken noodle soup, because isn't that supposed to make you feel better? Sure, just when you have a cold, but you set everything up on the bed for him so that he can eat it in bed while watching Rumble Fish. You just watch him, making sure he doesn't spills up over everything and, basically, making sure that he's okay.

After supper he falls asleep again, and after a quick shower you crawl into bed beside him. You need to make sure that you're not hurting him when you slip your arm around him, but he snuggles into your chest just like usual, so you figure that you're okay.

You're totally exhausted, so you fall asleep right away.

The next day you wake up and he's gone. You freak out a little bit, especially once you see violet blood on the pillowcase, but once you get up and hear the shower running, you figure that he's okay. That doesn't stop you from sitting outside the bathroom door, waiting for him to come out so that you can make _sure_ he's totally okay. When he comes out of the bathroom - completely naked, of course - and sees you sitting there, he just looks at you.

"Hey," you say, raising a hand in greeting. He just stares at you for a few more seconds.

"Uh, Dirk?" he asks. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," you say. Fuck. You're blushing. Fuck. Maybe you should kiss him or something. You stand up, kiss him on the lips once, and move on to the kitchen. Fuck. You're too awkward. You should get help with that. God damn it.

You glance out the window, only to come face-to-face with Mister Turtleneck. Uh. Kankri. He just sort of stares at you for a while, then moves to the door and knocks. You head out of the kitchen to let him in. "Yo," you say, trying to be cool and failing miserably, probably because you're freezing cold because you do not have a shirt on and the wind is blowing and wow it's cold.

Kankri averts his gaze. "I have come to inquire about the health of Cronus," he says. "I heard about Latula and Kurloz ganging up on him yesterday, and can you please put on a shirt. It could be very triggering to anyone who is not as muscular as you, for example, everyone apart from Horuss. It could make some individuals feel insecure about their body and that is _very_ problematic."

You almost laugh, but instead pop a tanktop onto your body. He still won't look at you. You sigh and go with the t-shirt. He, apparently, finds this acceptable, because he starts talking again.

"Where is Cronus?"

"Upstairs," you say, and stop him when you see he's about to charge right past you and head for Cronus. "I should probably tell him to put some clothes on first, so don't just go charging in there. He usually doesn't put on clothes until... well... unless we go outside, so..."

Kankri is bright red at this point, so you just sort of move him inside, shut the door behind him, and head up to get Cronus.

As expected, he is completely naked, sprawled out on his bed. He has headphones in his ears, which is something that you weren't expecting - hadn't he mentioned he did music once? You're not sure. You pull his headphones off, sitting down next to him. He manages a smile.

"Your sweatered friend is here," you inform him. "So you should probably put on some clothes."

He groans and pulls himself up using your shoulder. "Is that why you're wearing a shirt?" he asks, nuzzling his face into your neck. You nod, just managing to not blush and make a total fucking fool of yourself. "Fucking Kankri."

"Hey, I think he's worried about you," you point out. "Sounds like you've got a friend."

"Yeah... Kankri's a good guy..." he trails off, pushing himself off of the bed. For some reason he digs through piles of clothes until he finds underwear and a t-shirt, which you think is kind of weird but also kind of cute. You watch him get dressed, and he knows you're watching him because he takes way longer than is totally necessary to get dressed.

It gets to the point where you can't take it anymore and just stand up, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind and kissing the uninjured side of his neck. He squeaks a little - God, he's so fucking _adorable_ - and turns his head to kiss you on the mouth. You tighten your grip around his waist, keeping his body pressed against you and his ass pressed up against your hip. You figure that if you don't stop now you won't for another hour, but, to be honest, you don't actually fucking care.

You slip a hand into his underwear and his bulge seeks it out, slimy against your fingers. You've long gotten used to the feel of it, and let it curl around your hand, using your thumb to rub the underside of it and feeling Cronus melt against you.

There's a knock on the bedroom door.

Fuck.

Kankri.

You yank your hand out of Cronus's pants and wipe it on the blankets. Cronus pulls on a pair of sweatpants and opens the door, smiling widely. "Hey, Kankri,"' he says. You avoid Kankri's gaze, which is sweeping over the room almost accusingly. "Nice of you to drop by. I, uh, I'm totally fine."

"You're very bruised up," Kankri says, staring up at Cronus's face. Cronus laughs awkwardly.

"Yeah, a little, but, as you can see, I'm not bedridden or anything so you can just leave now and I can get back to having sex - uh, I mean, um, watching movies with Dirk! Totally fine. We can talk about it later if you want and you can tell me all about how Kurloz and Latula and Mituna were being _totally_ problematic."

"The television is not on," Kankri points out. Cronus's face is frozen in a sort of awkward grimace that you think is absolutely adorable. "I would like to hear in great detail what happened to you yesterday. I cannot fully understand what was done unless I hear every detail. Be sure to tag your triggers."

Cronus sighs and sits on the bed. You, feeling awkward, keep standing. "Fine," he says. The look that was on his face yesterday is back, and you want to punch Kankri in the face for being the one to bring it back. "If you seriously won't leave unless I tell you."

He glances at you, and you can tell he wants you to leave. Troll culture and not telling their boyfriends what bothers them. You do leave, but you decide to sit right outside the door and listen in on what Cronus is saying.

You figure that it's okay.

It's the only way you're ever going to understand your greaserfish.

* * *

**i don't even know**


	25. Chapter Twenty-five: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you have no idea how to go about telling Kankri what happened.

It doesn't help that your head was already fucked up from Latula smacking it with her skateboard a billion times, but whenever you run into Kurloz you always have a weird feeling afterward. You're never really sure what happened, even though half the time you're a fucking mess, shaking and crying and screaming and bloody.

Kankri's just watching you patiently, waiting for you to say something. You shift awkwardly, reaching up to rub the side of your head and wincing when you come into contact with a bump. Ouch. One of the spots Latula got you. You would fucking hate that bitch if she wasn't so hot.

"So, what happened?" Kankri asks after a few seconds. You can just tell he's dying for you to say your piece so that he can go off on something, and you figure that you should so that he can say his thing and you and Dirk can go back to what you were doing. He was just getting you to _forget_ your problems, the last thing you need to do is regurgitate them for Kankri Vantas.

"I... well, you know how Kurloz - wait, trigger warning, mind fuckery - does his stuff, so I'm not sure really what happened... also, uh, trigger warning, abuse, Latula sort of bashed my head in with a skateboard so it's already a little fuzzy-"

"Cronus," he says, one hand hesitantly setting down on top of yours. "I did say to tag your triggers, but I am worried about you. If you feel you need to say it first and tag later, that would be acceptable. It is highly unlikely that I will be majorly affected by what you have to say in a negative way."

You take a deep breath. Alright. This is going to be harder now that you can't hide behind trigger warnings. Fuck, you never thought you'd think that.

"I... well, I better just start from the beginning," you say, pulling your knees to your chest and hooking your arms around them. You feel like a little kid. Especially since you forgot to grease your hair this morning. Too much shit going on too fast, you guess. Wait. He's looking at you. You should probably keep talking. "Well, I wanted to do something cool for Dirk since we've never really gone on a real date, so I wanted to... like, make a picnic, so I did, I got everything ready and shit, and then we got ready to go and we went and he decided to stop walking around Latula and Mituna, but I figured that maybe it would be fine, maybe they'd just ignore us, Latula usually ignores me so I figured that... well, I figured it'd be okay. And then Mituna started being an asshole and I..."

"You did what you usually do when this sort of thing happens?" he suggests, a little hesitantly. "You unloaded all of your frustration on him."

"Yeah," you admit, running a hand through your hair. "I did. I _totally_ forgot that Latula was standing, like, right there, and she hit me with her skateboard and nearly broke my face, and then Dirk stepped in and I thought he'd just tell her to fuck off and she would, and he was doing pretty good on getting her to leave but then Kurloz showed up and..."

You stop for a breath, clutching your legs tighter to your chest. Fuck. It hurts. Your chest hurts. Your back hurts. Your head, oh your _head_, hurts. It all hurts and talking about it is just making it worse. Kankri isn't talking yet, but you have a feeling that once the entire story is done he'll start, and while you usually listen to him - pretty eagerly, in fact - and enjoy his company, right now you have a feeling that he'll just give you a headache.

It was different when he was the only one you had.

"Continue," Kankri says, and you half expect him to pull out a pad of paper or whatever those human slutty moirails do.

"I... Dirk took on him and Latula hit me with her skateboard again, right in the back of the head, and I went down and I don't know what was going on except she kept hitting me... and Mituna kept screeching about something or another and..." you're shaking, you're shaking _so much_ and it's _horrible_. You swallow and continue. "And then I think Dirk got her away from me somehow, because she was _gone_. But then something happened. Kurloz did something to Dirk and I was _so fucking angry_ and I ran at him and..."

This is where you draw a blank. You have no fucking idea what happened next. You have a vague idea, you remember _pain_ and _blood_ and _something awful being in your head make it stop make it stop_, but you struggle to put it into words. Kankri expects you to, you can see it on his face, with his oversized red turtleneck and his politely blank expression.

"And I don't really remember after that, just that I was lying on the ground and everything hurt and Dirk picked me up and carried me home," you finish lamely. After a brief hesitation, you add the appropriate trigger warnings. Kankri is nodding slowly, and you make yourself comfortable, sure that he's going to start in on one of his sermons and it's going to be forever before you can continue your fun times with Dirk Strider, but then, lo and behold, there's the man himself.

Dirk opens the door and edges in.

"I heard the trigger warnings," he says, almost apologetically, and you know almost immediately that he was just sitting outside the door, listening. You would be mad, but you didn't really say anything that he didn't already know. It's nothing really weird.

Kankri, however, is pissed. He stands up, straightening his sweater and brushing past Dirk with more force than you knew he had in him. Before leaving the room, he turns to look at you.

"Thank you for sharing that with me, Cronus, and thank you for tagging your triggers appropriately, although I would approve if you used a bit less profanity in your speaking. You were worked up, I understand, but please keep an eye on that. It could get very problematic. I will see myself out," he says, and he slams the door. Dirk watches him, grimacing.

"Did I fuck it up?" he asks, and you sigh, lying back on the bed.

"Dunno. He's weird. Hey, maybe he's pale for me," you muse. "I mean, before you came along he was the only one I had to, you know, talk to and stuff like that, so maybe he's jealous. Thinks you're going to be my moirail, when it's obvious that we're something _way_ redder than that. I know he's not red for me, he's got such a crush on Latula, even if he thinks he's totally free on the whole quadrant thing, but..."

He flops down next to you as you trail off, and you look over at him. Hopefully he'll be helping you forget your problems again in the very, very near future.

From the looks of it, he probably will be.

* * *

**i don't ship red cronkri at all but man pale cronkri is the best like man one of my pale otps right there**


	26. Chapter Twenty-six: Cronus

As soon as you hear Kankri leave, you turn to Dirk. He props himself up on his elbows, looking sexy, as usual, though not as sexy as he would if he wasn't wearing a t-shirt. "You ready to pick up where we left off?" you ask, giving him a little smirk. He raises an eyebrow.

"And where was that?" he asks, and you know that you're going to have to initiate this one. That's cool. You can do that.

"Here," you say, crawling onto his lap and kissing him, your body pressed against his and your tongue flicking out to try and get into his mouth. His arms are shaking a little, you can feel it, but he doesn't give in and just lay down, so you keep kissing him, reaching your hand down to grope at his crotch. As soon as your fingers find the band of his underwear and slip inside his arms give out.

You smirk against his mouth, finding his dick with your hand and enjoying it as he shakes, trying not to make as much noise as _you_ usually do and trying to keep ah old of himself. His hands reach to cup your ass, and you move your mouth from his lips to his neck, trying to concentrate on both his dick and his neck and failing miserably. He's hard, at least, you can still do that. Your bulge is fighting for attention, too, and you wish that he'd take off your pants. You wish that he'd take off _his_ pants. You wish that he'd take off that goddam t-shirt.

You tug at the shirt with your teeth, wondering if you can just _chew_ through it. He gets the hint.

"Want to take a break to get rid of the clothes?" he asks, and you roll off of him immediately, untangling your hand from his underwear. He smirks and pulls off his t-shirt and, like always, you can't help but gape. Why don't you look like that? There's always that weird jealousy, picking at the back of your mind, whenever you see Dirk Strider shirtless.

Soon his underwear is gone too and oh fuck you forgot to take off _your_ clothes you were so busy staring at him. You feel heat flood your face and you shakily try to get your goddam pants off, but now your foot is stuck and shit _shit_ shit you are fucking this up royally.

He's laughing, oh no he's _laughing at you_, this is not how this was supposed to go, you were supposed to make out and maybe fuck and then take another shower together and watch a movie and he was supposed to kiss you on the head and tell you that he loves you and you were supposed to say it back and _this is not how it goes._

He's still laughing as he kneels down to untangle your foot. You can't shake the fact that he's _laughing_ at you, he's laughing at you, he thinks you're an idiot and this is just a pity thing.

"Are you okay?"

You swallow, digging your fingernails into your palms, and look down at him. _Fuck_, he's beautiful. What the hell is up with all this self-hating shit lately? Sure, it happens every once in a while, but usually you'll marathon some movies, maybe not come out of your hive for a few days, and it'll be fine. With Dirk here... it's happened so much. You just feel so _insignificant_ beside him. He's so muscular and powerful and impressive, and you're... well, you're Cronus Ampora, The Guy Who Can't Get Laid.

"I'm fine," you say, kicking your pants off the rest of the way and nearly diving down to kiss Dirk. He recuperates, though it's a little hesitant. You deepen the kiss, tangling your fingers in his hair and kissing all of your self-hatred away. It works. It _has_ to work. If sex doesn't fix everything, then what the hell have you been doing all your life?

His hands go straight to your ass, pulling your underwear down. They drop to the ground, somewhere around your knees - both of you are on the ground, kneeling and kissing each other and overall just having a _great fucking time._ You grind your crotch against his, feeling your bulge wrap its way around his dick, feeling the strange _heat_ of it.

You overpower him, knocking him on his back and kissing him harder, getting your hands out of his hair and framing his face with them. You move your mouth down to his neck, kissing and teasing _ever-so-gently _with your teeth, just barely scraping them against his collarbone and all the while trying to keep your bulge from totally letting go of everything. His dick is hard, almost impossibly hard, and you decide to reach down there and finish him off, untangling your bulge and letting it curl around your wrist while you move from the upper half of his body to the lower half.

Before you can get the chance to help him out, he comes, and you nearly sigh. Damn it. There goes your chance.

He props himself back up, a little pink. Your bulge uncurls from your wrist, and then he grabs it and pulls you toward him and kisses you, and it's a happy kiss, a kiss just filled to the fucking top with joy, and you just fucking melt. You melt into him, clutching him and pulling him closer to you, _damn_ it he must be uncomfortable on the floor, he's doing this all for _you_ and you just can't fathom it.

He takes a hold of your arms and moves you off of him, standing up and then pulling you up with him. "I'm going to clean this up and take a shower," he says. "Join me?"

Yes. Yes, the shower. The shower will fix everything that you might have done wrong. You've fantasized about doing stuff in the shower with _everyone_ - even Rufioh, though you had to imagine a slightly bigger shower to accommodate for his horns - and with Dirk you've already done some stuff so you should be good, right? You'll be good. Shower sex. It'll be fun.

You nod. "Sounds like a good time," you say. Your bulge is still going crazy down there, but you've gotten good at ignoring it when that happens. Happens all of the time, how couldn't you get used to it?

He grins at you. "A hell of a good time."

* * *

**well this was just supposed to be some shenanigans but some self-hate managed to sneak its way in there god damn it cro**


	27. Chapter Twenty-seven: Cronus

You follow him into the bathroom, shedding your t-shirt and blushing a little as he helps you into the shower like you're a fucking princess or something. Yeah, that's right. You're a princess and he's your prince.

Well, he is the Prince of Heart.

...but Bard and Prince doesn't sound quite right together. You'll just scrap the whole analogy. You were going to maybe use it for lyrics or something, but it sounds stupid so you're not actually going to do that. You haven't had much time for your music since Dirk came into your life. You'd sure as hell prefer to be with Dirk than work on your music, but maybe that's why so much of that stupid self-hatred has managed to sneak its way into your life. You haven't been able to use music as a release.

Huh. That's actually a pretty good reason, and probably true, too.

Dirk kisses you, pulling you out of your thoughts and toward him. You're closest to the water, partly because it takes a while to warm up and partly because you're smaller, and it's weird to have the mostly-dry Dirk on one side and water on the other. "What'cha thinking about, babe?" he asks, and you shiver a little. Wow, that really turns you on. You would be lying if you said that you weren't totally turned on right now. Wow. He needs to call you babe more often.

You ignore his question and kiss him again. It's a sloppy one, with tongue and spit and mouths bumping together in a way that doesn't make sense, but you don't really care. The water is almost scalding now, burning into your back. You really hope that none gets into your gills. From what you can tell, Dirk likes his showers hot and you can't really have them that hot, because when burning hot water gets in your gills, it _really fucking burns_. Maybe Dirk should be closer to the water.

His arms are around your waist and your hands are cupping his face, pulling him as close to you as you can get, feeling smooth skin underneath your fingers and his soft mouth on yours.

He pulls away a little - the two of you are still _incredibly_ close, of course, you've basically trapped each other - and stares at you. He's in an amazing mood and you don't know why. It's certainly helping your mood, but it's still weird. Maybe it's because... yeah, you have absolutely no idea why he's so happy, but his eyes are _sparkling_ and he's smiling and _wow he's really happy and it's really adorable and kind of hot._

"I love you," he says, all deep and earnest-like, and you swallow, turning bright violet. It's still hard. It's still really hard to say it back, even though you know it shouldn't.

"I- I-" fuck, you're choking on words, you're choking and you don't know how to get them out. "I- love you too."

You say it too fast and you're sure that he's just going to... like, throw you across the room and leave, but instead he kisses you, and keeps you close to him, and this would be perfect except your back is _really_ burning now.

"Dirk," you breathe after the kiss is over. "This is great and all, but can we... like, switch so that you're by the water? Because it's really hot."

He looks like he wants to start laughing again, but instead just manages to maneuver the two of you so that he's closest to the water. You like water and all, you're a seadweller, of course you do, but _damn_, that was getting hot.

"Why are you so happy?" you ask. He blinks. You keep talking. "I mean, not that it's bad, and it's not like you're all... doom and gloom all the time, but... it's kind of weird. Like, your personality totally turned around."

He sighs, the smile melting off of his face a bit. Oh fuck. You turned him all doom and gloom.

"I'm just relieved," he says. "I didn't really hear all of what you and Turtleneck said to each other, but from what I heard, it didn't seem that much different from what I knew. I mean, yeah, creepy mime troll did something to you, but I was expecting some... some fucking Stephen King horror story."

You shrug and try not to think about Kurloz. "Nope," you say, even though it sort of is a horror story what Kurloz can do. He's happy. You don't want to ruin it.

"That's fantastic," he says. "I don't know why I was so... so fucking useless back there, but next time it will be better. If there is a next time. Wait. Fuck."

And he's just as awkward as you are. It's sort of relieving, in a way. Dirk Strider may be impressive and muscular and totally sexy, but he's not perfect. His perfection is only in his physical being.

Well, his personality is pretty awesome too, being able to put up with you, but mostly you think he's really, really fucking hot.

You kiss him. It's a short kiss - you're tired, whether it's from your injuries or talking to Kankri, you don't know, but you don't actually feel up for shower sex. Wow. Cronus Ampora not up for sex. Call the press.

"Do you need to wash your hair?" he asks, and you shake your head. You actually already took a shower today, before Kankri showed up. You don't actually know why you're in here, if not to be with Dirk. He decides not to wash his hair, either, and soon the two of you are out of there. You leave your hair down. You're not leaving the house until your face doesn't look so fucking horrible and your neck doesn't have a gaping wound on it and you basically can face everyone again. They'll forget, eventually. You can just stay inside with Dirk until that happens.

You do put on some underwear, and a t-shirt, because you're actually sort of cold now, and Dirk puts on his god-tier outfit, which must be really fucking comfortable, if a little embarrassing to wear in public. You'd never wear it. His, you mean. Yours is pretty sweet. You maybe would've chosen a better color, though.

"So, what do you want to do today?" he asks as the two of you sit on the couch, his arm slung across your shoulder and you curled into him. "Bake cookies or some shit like that? Get all domestic on this?"

You laugh a little, then realize that you're actually pretty hungry and cookies sound like an awesome idea. "Why not?" you say. "It's not like I look presentable."

* * *

**yeah i dont even know next chapter they bake cookies**


	28. Chapter Twenty-eight: Dirk

Your name is Dirk Strider and staying this obnoxiously happy is really taking its toll on you.

It's not that you're not happy - you're pretty happy, just being with Cronus, apparently going to bake cookies now - but keeping a smile on your face? Uh, yeah, you're not really used to that. You're a _Strider_, for God's sake. Cool and keeping your emotions in check is more your forte. But, you want to keep Cronus happy, because with his body so battered he needs a little bit of extra help.

"I don't know how to make cookies," he announces, standing before you in the kitchen. He has one hand on the counter, and is looking at his fingernails on the other. Leaning ever-so-slightly to the right with his legs crossed... it would be pretty damn easy just to sweep him off his feet here and kiss him until he felt better. You're sure he knows this. You're pretty sure he's doing this on purpose. You need to stop thinking with your dick and remember how to make some goddam cookies.

"Yeah, cookies, okay," you say, trying to remember. Chocolate-chip cookies you can maybe sort of remember how to make. You've never made chocolate-chip cookies in your life, actually, but the recipe was always on the back of the butter and you always _meant_ to make them. You figure that you can probably remember. You're good at remembering shit, and you sure as hell read the back of that goddam butter box over and over and over and over.

He's looking at you and it's sort of distracting you. Fuck. Cookies. With his face all bruised up and neck hastily bandaged... wow, yeah, you're going to think about that innocent-looking girl on the Blue Bonnet Box now.

"Preheating the oven," you decide, because you always have to preheat the goddam oven. He slides over to the oven and switches it to bake, then looks back at you.

"Preheat it to what? Damn, we should have Meenah here, she can bake," he mutters.

"Of course she can bake," you say. "She literally took over Earth with baked goods. Well. And imperial drones. And some other shit. But it started with the baked goods. But three-fifty, probably."

He turns on the oven, and now you have to think about what you do next. Mix up the dry stuff, right? Like, the sugar and shit? No, not the sugar... flour. "Okay, we need flour... salt... baking powder - wait, no soda, baking soda," you decide next, and he rummages around in the previously totally empty cupboards for a bit before pulling out the required ingredients. "And a bowl."

You kiss him once on the lips when he brings you the bowl. He's blushing. He always blushes when you're cute with him. It's really fucking adorable.

You wonder if you can just sort of dump everything into the bowl, so you do. Lacking a spoon, you pull out your sword and stir it with that. He's just staring at you. You look at him.

"What?"

"Do you want something else to stir that with?" he asks. You contemplate it, then shake your head.

"Nah," you say. "I'm good."

It's a little awkward for a few minutes, and then he talks again. "...So, what next?"

"Margarine and sugar," you say. "Oh. Melt the butter first."

He does, and he elects to stir this, using a wooden spoon he found from god-knows-where. You're fine with your sword, and while you continue to totally over-mix the flour and other stuff, you think about what's next.

It doesn't take you that long to figure out how to finish up the cookies, and once you're done (using your sword to shape the little dough balls on the tray, of course) you take the bowl of leftover cookie dough and Cronus and head back to the living room. He cuddles into you, and you take a little bit of cookie dough on your finger and poke at his mouth. He looks at you, and you smirk. He blushes faintly - he blushes a lot, actually, usually it's just a faint violet tint underneath that smooth gray skin.

He opens his mouth, just a little, and you poke your finger into it. His tongue swirls around it, taking off the cookie dough and nearly biting off your finger in his attempts to eat it as fast as humanly possible.

"That's good," he says. You snort.

"Your buddy's the fucking Batterwitch and you've never had _cookie dough_?" you ask, and he sighs.

"Yeah, well, Meenah'd always, like, murder me if I ever stepped within ten feet of her kitchen, so I never really had the opportunity," he says, hand sneaking toward the bowl. "And I can't cook."

"This is baking," you inform him. "There's a major fucking difference. Cooking's like... stew and stuff."

"Can you make stew?" he asks, and you think about it.

"Maybe," you say. "I've never been partial to stew myself, but we could always try it out."

"What's the difference between a stew and a soup, anyway?" he asks. He has cookie dough all over his face. It's so fucking adorable. God. He really needs to stop being so fucking adorable. How old is he, anyway?

You shrug. "A stew's a hell of a lot thicker, I think," you say. "Slow down on the cookie dough, you'll get sick."

He ignores you, and you kiss the side of his mouth, where most of it has been ending up. Between the taste of sticky sweet cookie dough and pure Cronus, you're really loving it. He half-purrs, leaning into you as you kiss the rest of it off of his face and then take his hand in yours, kissing the cookie dough off of his knuckles and fingers. The bowl falls to the ground and rolls away, totally ignored for now. You go back to his mouth.

He gives in to you immediately, leaning into you and hungrily going for more kisses. You keep kissing his mouth, your hands clutching him and your mouth tasting him and _wow_ if you want to get anything productive done today you should probably stop now.

But... you don't think you will. No, you'd rather just keep kissing him right now.

* * *

**i'M SORRY THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A 2000 WORD CHAPTER BUT I RAN OUT OF TIME TOMORROW I PROMISE**


	29. Chapter Twenty-nine: Dirk

You kiss him, holding one of his hands in yours and holding the back of his head with the other. He's clinging to you as best as he can with one hand, kissing back hungrily and with ample tongue. You have to be careful, what with the back of his head being a mess of bumps and bruises from Latula's skateboard, but he's not complaining or anything so you figure that he's not hurting. Either that or he's just so horny that he doesn't care if it hurts.

Funnily enough, you're not sure which is true in this situation.

You decide to ignore that and keep kissing him, tasting cookie dough and seadweller, his free hand slipping from your neck to trail down your back. You can just faintly feel his fingernails through the fabric of your shirt and _damn_ is he hitting all of the good spots, pressing a little harder when he should and totally leaving it alone when he shouldn't. You stop kissing his mouth for a bit, moving down his body to kiss his neck - uninjured side, of course, tongue flicking out to his gills. It elicits the same sort of response as usual, though he has gotten better at being a bit quieter. You have to work a bit harder now to get some fucking noise along with the shivers and the clinging to you with all he's got.

You let go of his other hand and it immediately goes to your hips. You can tell that he's aiming for your dick, and you really want to let him, but _damn_ it'll be fun to fuck with him some more. With one well-placed flick of the tongue he gasps, moaning a little and tightening his grip on your hips. You grin against his neck, trailing little kisses down his neck and under the collar of his shirt. God damn that stupid shirt. You wish he didn't have it on. At least he doesn't have any fucking pants on. Just underwear.

His grip keeps tightening on you and he keeps making those little gasping, moaning noises and you fucking _love_ it. You're so fucking turned on right now it's not even funny.

You kiss him on the mouth and apparently that makes it so that he has a better hold of himself, because he pulls down your pants, underwear and all. Somewhere along the line you've managed to press him into the couch, with you hovering over him. You need to be careful, you need to be careful because of his bruises but god _damn_ do you just want to press your body into his, kissing every part of him and listening as he gasps and moans and makes those cute little squeaking noises back in his throat. You decide to deal with it by taking off his shirt instead, retaliating for your missing pants. He obliges, wriggling a little so that it's easier. You've become almost a pro at getting his shirt over his head without getting it stuck over his horns, so it doesn't take that long.

His chest is still a mess of bruises, all shades of purple and black and blue. You wince. You don't want to know how that feels and well fuck this is certainly a mood-killer.

Not for him, apparently, because he pulls your head back down to kiss him. You do, your hands framing his face and overall trying not to crush him and make him hurt more. Your dick is practically _screaming_ for attention, but you decide that it can fucking wait because god damn it you have an injured boyfriend beneath you and you _don't want to hurt him even more than he already is_. No matter how much he seems to be encouraging it.

He solves the problem, sitting up totally and pushing you off gently. He goes to work between your legs, tongue once again doing the work of miracles and looking up at you like oh _fuck_ you just accidentally came in his mouth.

He starts a little, leaning away and spitting it out. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks up at you, shaking a little. You manage a grimace.

"I," you say. "I. Uh. Sorry about that."

He smirks a little, just a small twitching of his lips, and then he's laughing. You pull him up and he latches onto you like a lovable leech, burying his head into your shoulder and worming his way under your arm. You grab a blanket and drape it over the both of you, because god damn is your lower half cold. You still hate the fact that he's covered in bruises, but he doesn't actually seem to mind (_is this a thing that happens often?),_ so you figure that you should just fucking forget it already. It probably doesn't even matter, anyway. They'll be gone before you know it, and then the two of you can go out again and you can make out without having to worry about hurting him.

You kiss the top of his head, and he sighs a little. "What?" you ask.

"It's still kind of weird when you do that," he mutters into your shirt. "Kinda pale."

"Pale...?" you say, half-talking to yourself. He nods.

"Yeah, like moirails. They're all... dunno, I guess matesprits can be cutesy, too, but it's really pale. I know that humans don't do that, and that's totally cool, that you guys - we- humans have a different way where, like, _everyone's_ your moirail or however it goes. Really takes long-established matesprits to be that cute, you know?" he asks. He sounds like he's sort of talking to himself, too. You, of course, have really no idea how troll romance works, but it's sort of interesting, you guess. It's something you should know, if your boyfriend's a troll, albeit one who looks like a 1950's greaser. "I mean, I really only know the theoretical bit of romance, I did have a moirail when... well, a long time ago... and I went on a really short and sort of shitty date with Rufioh once, and I like to think that me and Meenah sort of had a black thing going on at one point, but other than that..."

"I've only had one boyfriend before you," you admit. "But, then again, I was the last guy on Earth. Not that easy getting a date when you're not interested in girls and the only other person on Earth is a chick."

"Then where'd the boyfriend come from?" he asks, twisting to look at you. You really wish that you hadn't brought it up, because you don't really want to talk about it, but you figure that you already mentioned it, so you just better deal with it.

"Some weird shit involving chat clients that could connect me with a guy that lived a long time before me," you say. "Jake English, Page of Hope."

It's awkward for a little bit.

"...I broke up with him a while ago, though," you say, and hope that that ends it. He's looking at you with something akin to interest. "Can we stop talking about it now?"

"You've got a type then," he says, smirking a little bit. "A thing for Hope guys."

"_You're_ Hope?" you ask. Fuck, fuck, fuck, you wish that this conversation was over so why won't you stop talking? "I mean-"

"I know, I know," he says. "I fucked it up. Can't do anything right, you know? Story-of-my-fucking-life. Can't get laid - well, before you came along - can't get anyone to like me, can't be the Hope guy. Wish I woulda reached Godtier, though, the outfit's pretty sweet."

You don't even want to ask what sort of godtier outfit he thinks is 'pretty sweet.'

"Either way, could we maybe shut up about it?" you ask. He nods, going back to burying his head into your shoulder and tracing his fingernails over your chest.

Well. At least that got the 'exes' talk out of your way.

* * *

**i lied i didn't have time for a 2000 word update**


	30. Chapter Thirty: Dirk

You must have fallen asleep, because the next thing you know, you're waking up on the couch, all alone, half-covered in the blanket. Cronus is nowhere to be seen. You wonder if he's in the shower. He's already taken like three showers today, so that's probably not it, but you can never be too sure.

Pulling on some pants, you get up and head to the bathroom. Nope. No water running. You open the door and check, just in case, but he's not doing his hair, either. You don't hear the sounds of an overdramatic, cheesy greaser movie coming from the room either, so unless he's being uncharacteristically quiet, he's not in the house.

To be honest, this sort of worries you. Like. A lot.

You check every room, just to be safe, and, sure enough, he's not in any of them. You run your fingers through your hair, sighing. He could've just stepped out for some fresh air, right? Just wanted to step outside for a bit?

But, no, he wouldn't with his face looking like that. You know Cronus. He wouldn't want to have gone outside until he looked like his normal self again, unless he was trying to garner some sympathy... but, no, you don't think he would've gone outside.

But, hell, he has to be somewhere!

You decide to ask around. Maybe... maybe he needed to talk to Mister Turtleneck and couldn't get him to come over. Yeah, that's probably it. You'll go out there and maybe see the two of them sitting underneath a tree, talking about their problems or some shit like that. It'll be fine. Totally fucking fine.

You head out. Like always, there's nobody within a twenty-foot radius of Cronus's house. There is, however, Mister Turtleneck under a tree, all alone.

Shit.

You nearly run over to him blocking his light so that he can't see the notepad he was scrawling something down in. He looks up at you, annoyed. "Who... oh, you are Cronus's recently acquired matesprit, are you not?"

"Uh... yeah," you say. He looks like he's not going to shut up if you let him start, so you just don't. "Speaking of the guy, have you seen him around? I woke up and he was totally fucking _gone_."

"Cronus?" he says, frowning a little. "No... no, I have not seen him since I went to his hive... forgive me, it is called a house for humans, correct? However, I would appreciate it if you would inform me of his whereabouts when you find him."

"Sure thing," you say, nodding to him and leaving. You have a feeling that you just got out of a huge lecture on something-or-other, and are really, really glad for the fact that Kankri seems to care about Cronus, at least a little.

...But, also, you're really not glad about the fact that he had no idea where Cronus was. You don't know who you should check next. Latula, maybe? She sure as hell didn't like him, but maybe she'll answer if you ask. She seemed to like your shades, anyway.

That is, if you can find her. Maybe you'll try and find Rufioh, too. You don't really want to try and find the creepy mime clown troll thing, but if it comes to that... you'll try it. Even if he just flips you off and leaves, it has to be worth something, right?

You run into a troll with more tattoos than clothes. She seems to be doing nothing, so you decide to go up and ask about Cronus.

"Hey," you say, and she turns to look at you. Her eyes give your body a full sweep, and then she looks you straight in the eye.

"I don't believe we've met," she says. "My name is Porrim Maryam."

"Dirk Strider, but that's not the point," you say. She raises an eyebrow. "Have you seen Cronus around?"

"Oh, you're Cronus's new... friend," she says, nodding. She's got a lot of piercings, too. It's a little weird. "No, he hasn't tried to hit on me for a while now. That would be because of you, I suppose I must thank you."

"Uh. Sure," you say, leaving it at that. If she doesn't know anything she's not worth you're fucking time. "Well. I've got to go. So. See you."

You take off. You job through the dreambubbles, keeping an eye out for any of the trolls that Cronus knows. There... there's the big sweaty one that always hangs around Rufioh!

But, to be honest, he's really freaking you out and you really don't want to talk to him, so you opt for the skateboard that's poking out of the bushes. You tug it out, and, lo and behold, it's Mituna. He smacks your hands away from his skateboard and you back up a step.

"Have you seen Cronus around?" you ask. He looks at you, uncomprehending. This is a waste of time. You don't know how you're supposed to deal with this guy. You sigh. "Where's Latula?"

"Why?" he says... or, at least, that's what you think he says. He then says some other stuff that you're not even going to _try_ to decipher, but then Latula shows up, so it doesn't really matter.

"Hey!" she says, waving enthusiastically even though she's literally three feet away from you. "Coolkid with the totes rad shades!"

You nod to her. "Latula," you say. "Where the fuck is my boyfriend?"

"Oh, you mean Cronus?" she asks. She tilts her head to the side. "Uh... I dunno! I did see him going that way a while ago! He looked _mad_, man! Don't know what was going on, though! Oh, and don't touch 'Tuna's skateboard! I'll break your fucking neck if you do again!"

You decide to just go in the direction she pointed and not go near her or Mituna ever again, because, damn, she can be scary. It's just not better to mess with them, you think. To be honest, you'd take Kurloz over her protecting Mituna.

...Okay, maybe not, because he's seriously fucking creepy, but the general idea's still there.

Still, you don't know what Cronus could be mad about, and, to be honest, you're a little worried. He didn't seem like a guy who, when mad, would actually do something about it. He's a little spineless. Okay, a lot spineless. You really hope that it's something stupid he's getting worked up about, that you won't find him in a pool of his own blood when you finally do find him. Shit, shit, _shit_.

You pull out your sword, just for something to make you feel better. You keep staring ahead as you fucking _sprint_ through the trees. How long were you sleeping? How long did he have to go? Was he running? Did Latula even point you in the right fucking direction?

Shit, shit, _shit_.

* * *

**i don't even know oh also my 'y' key is sort of broken so if i missed one or two places where there should be a 'y' that's why**


	31. Chapter Thirty-one: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you have no idea what you're doing.

To be honest, you're pissed. Normally, when this pissed off, you'd just go rant to Kankri or dump all of your frustrations on Mituna or something like that, but... no. You're pissed that you looked like a weakling in front of Dirk and you're pissed that Kurloz knocked him out and now, against your better judgement, you're going to meet Kurloz.

Alone.

All alone.

You did, after much consideration, stick a wand in your back pocket. It's stupid. Magic is just a huge disappointment and you shouldn't even be considering it, but... hell, it did work once or twice, just not when you wanted it to, and especially not when you needed it to. If only Meenah hadn't broken your Ahab's Crosshairs... you're sure you could find another one, or just plain fix the one you have, but you don't have any time for that, so you're stuck with the wand.

You also have no idea where Kurloz actually _is_. He slipped a fucking note under your door like an idiot, but he was gone by the time you opened the door. It said to head east. So, you're heading east. You think you passed a few people on your way here, but you hope that they didn't take much interest in it, because the last thing you need is Dirk seeing you being all pathetic.

...However, Dirk showing up and rescuing you sounds pretty good.

But you'll look so _pathetic_.

Even though you are pathetic and it doesn't really matter. He already knows you're pathetic and worthless and spineless and overall just a huge douchebag with nothing to back anything you say, and he's still sticking with you, so he _probably_ won't leave you if he sees how pathetic you are one more time.

You decide to not think about that. You decide to think about winning a fight against Kurloz. Breaking his nose, cracking a few ribs, maybe... if only. You probably won't make it thirty seconds before he has you on the ground.

But it's worth a fucking shot.

You need to, maybe, not be so pathetic one day, and how that starts is growing a fucking spine.

After a few more minutes of quickly walking through the trees - you were running at the start, but you're so out of shape that you gave up on that pretty quick - you see him. He's leaning against a tree, all casual-like, and you just want to rip his stupid head off.

He sees you and smirks, standing to his full height. Fuck. You'd never realized just how much taller than you he is. Fuuuuuuck. He's going to absolutely _murder_ you. You swallow, glancing around. Yeah. You should've ignored him. You really should have ignored him. Is it too late to leave?

He signs something, but you never got past the basics of sign language - your Meulin phase, you figured that if you learned sign language she'd be more likely to sleep with you or something - and he's going way too fast. You assume it's something threatening and horrible, though. It always is with him.

Well, it probably always is with him. You really have no idea.

You wonder if he's just going to keep signing at you forever or if something's actually going to happen. Should you hit him? You haven't hit anyone in a while. What about your wand? No. No, that's just going to fucking... break or something, and you'll never live that down. The wand's out. You're going to have to hit him.

Fuuuuuck.

You square your shoulders. Really, he's not _that_ much taller than you... only like half a foot or so. And he's _totally_ not all lean muscle. Nope. Not at all. And he totally doesn't have an armspan that's practically double yours. And he's totally not going to kick your ass now.

You again wonder if it's too late to leave.

No. It's too late to leave. You have to fucking _stick_ with this.

But how the hell do you hit someone when they're just standing there signing at you, looking all threatening. You never thought Troll Sign Language - or, TSL - could look so creepy. Of course, it's Kurloz. Everything he does looks creepy.

"ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANYTHING, MOTHERFUCKER."

The words stab into your mind like needles, overpowering everything and causing you to squeak involuntarily. Your cross your arms tightly over your chest, fighting to impulse to just lay down then and there and just accept everything that's going to happen, which is, probably, you getting beaten into the ground by this stupid creepy mine clown troll thing.

Yeah. You're going to do something. You have to do something. You didn't come out here to just run away.

But, then again, running away sounds pretty great right now. And you still hurt from the last time.

Nope. You have to do something.

You uncross your arms. He's out of your head, at least - he must've just done it conversationally. Huh. Conversationally. Fucking great. He does it _conversationally_ now. You really have no idea why nobody believes you about him. He's a fucking _menace_.

You decide that you're going to have to punch him in the face. Right now. You're going to do it. You have your arms uncrossed and everything. You're going to. Yep. Right now. You clench your hand into a fist. Yeah, there's progress right there. Wait. Shit, if you do it like that you're going to break your thumb. You fix it, hoping that he didn't see. You're pretty sure he did, though. You're pretty sure he's just watching you, silently judging you.

How else would he judge you? He's _Kurloz_.

Alright. Punching Kurloz in the face. Maybe if you hit him hard enough he'll leave you alone.

Well, it's worth a shot.

You take a deep breath, clench your teeth, and hit him in the nose with your full strength. He doesn't do anything to stop you. You feel something crunch. Huh. You did break his nose oh shit oh shit he has your arm he has your arm you're on the ground well at least you lasted more than thirty seconds.

He has you pinned to the ground, one knee on your back and your arm twisted up behind you. You struggle, wriggling a little and wondering when the hell someone's going to come rescue you. What were you _thinking_? At least you broke his nose.

Yeah, you broke his nose.

You do have a feeling, however, that you're going to end up regretting breaking his nose.

* * *

**this would be longer but once again. running out of time. so next chapter. tomorrow night. will be the more exciting part.**


	32. Chapter Thirty-two: Cronus

You can't actually _breathe_, with his knee crushing your lungs, and your arm hurts, being all twisted up like that. He pulls your head back with his other hand, pulling your hair and _fuck_ his hurts. Your free hand is trying to get yourself a little bit off of the ground so that you can actually breathe, but he's making that really tough and it _hurts_, it hurts and he's so fucking slow and deliberate and _shit_.

You swallow, wriggling a little bit, and he yanks your arm up further. A few more centimeters and it'll be broken, or dislocated, or something. You squeak, breathing hard and _trying_ to get yourself some fucking _breathing room._

He's smiling. You know he's smiling. You can't actually see him, but you can tell he's smiling. He lets go of your head then, and you just let it drop while you focus on getting your arm free. His knee digs deeper into your back, and you find yourself wonder how the fuck he can weigh so much.

With an almost herculean strength, you push yourself up, locking your elbow and forcing him off of your back. He keeps a hold on your arm, and you both go over, you flipping over onto your back, your arm pinned between you and him. He hisses through the stitching on his mouth when you land on him, and you allow yourself a smirk before he throws you off. You push yourself up into a standing position, holding onto your arm. This isn't that bad, really. You're just going to have a major bruise on your back and your arm is just going to feel a little funny for a couple of days.

He stoops down to pick something up, and he brings up your wand, cocking an eyebrow. You feel your face grow hot. "Don't touch that," you mutter, grabbing for it. He smirks and pulls it away, holding you back with a hand on your chest. You shove his hand away, only to have him grab onto your collar and throw a foot underneath yours, sending you back to the ground. He stands, one foot on either side of your torso, and breaks the wand in half. You can see sparks and _wow_ that was a bad idea. You've broken a few of those in your day and it's going to explode in three... two... there it goes.

He, apparently, realizes what's going to happen a few seconds too late. You don't actually see the explosion, because you're smart and cover your face from sparks that are sure to drop on you and cause some _nasty_ side effects, but when you look back up at him his hands are bare and bleeding. You smirk.

"Shouldn't break those, buddy," you say. "It's the real thing. It'll blow up right away."

He retaliates by driving his heel into your ribs and _wow_ that hurts. Some sort of cough-screech thing makes its way out of your mouth and you double up as well as you can, with his foot on your chest. That was bad. Okay. Wands are bad. Wands are really, really bad. Like you didn't already know that.

He takes his foot off of you and crouches, just barely above you, and pulls you up by your shirt. You wish that he would just let you wallow in your misery on the ground. He's mad now. There's not even the pretending to be happy now. There's no smile. Shit. You really fucked up.

He looks like he's contemplating something, and hits you in the face while contemplating it. You taste blood. Ouch. That did not hurt as much as the last kick. It hurt, sure, but you're used to just being hit in the face. Porrim does it all the time. So does Latula. Man, the skateboard hurt more than that.

"A little lacking," you say, cursing yourself as you say it. You just don't know when to shut up, do you? You need to work on that. You really, really need to work on that. He doesn't seem as bothered by this comment, though. That annoying, slightly terrifying look of contemplation is still on his face. You really hope he's not about to do what you think he's going to do.

And then your vision blanks out and you know that he's doing _exactly_ what you were hoping he wasn't going to.

He doesn't do this all the time, usually only when he knows that there isn't going to be anyone showing up and seeing it; when he knows that he can get away with it. You know that nobody will ever believe you about anything, and, anyway, it's not like you can ever really remember what goes on. It just always starts with the darkness. You can still feel him, holding you up by your shirt and his feet pressing into your sides and the throbbing in your ribs. Your other senses fade out, one by one, until the only thing you can actually feel is your body and how much it fucking hurts.

Usually he'll talk during this, but this time the only thing you can feel is your body being hit and battered and pushed back and forth, and when you try to move there are explosions of color, overwhelming your brain and causing you to shrink away, which, in turn causes more color. There's a strange buzzing noise, too - it sounds like it could have a tune, but it's off, somehow, and it's all static, too. Vocals, too... mostly screaming, it sounds like, but either way, it's freaking you the fuck out. You try to curl yourself into a ball, but something's holding you back and who you assume is Kurloz is still beating the shit out of you, and you just _can't_. You're probably screaming, but you can't hear anything except the _static_, the _screaming_, the totally _off-tune music_. Everything hurts. Everything hurts and you can't concentrate on anything and you can't see anything except those _colors_, even when you close your eyes they're still _there_, imprinted on your eyelids and you can't shake them.

And then it stops.

Everything is gone.

Everything is totally gone.

It's just black.

The pain is still there, of course, but it's just the leftover stuff, nothing new. There is a constant pressure on the small of your back, but other than that, there's nothing. No sound. No smell. Just a bundle of insecurities drug up from somewhere in your mind and dropped on you like a bomb.

Pathetic. Attention whore. Douchebag. Worthless. Weak. Asshole.

Dirk's just with you out of pity, or as a joke. When you get back he'll be gone.

They want you to just die. They hope that one of these times, one of those ghostly suicide attempts is going to work, and if not, they'll just throw you to Lord English. He can kill ghosts.

They're all going to leave you and you'll be all alone. They don't care. They'll forget about you right away, and if they don't, they'll be sitting around saying "Glad we got rid of that douche."

You have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Nothing. There's nothing about you that's worth _anything_.

The greaser thing is just a plea for attention, just like the wizard thing was. You've never done anything worth anything in your life.

"He probably got those stupid scars from falling down the stairs, there's no way someone would single him out for something 'great.'"

"He stopped the wizard thing because he totally sucked at it. He couldn't even cast a spell without it blowing up in his face."

"Nice glasses, fishdick."

"Trying too hard, as always. Don't you know that nobody will ever like you?"

"Nobody."

"Never."

"You'll be alone forever."

"And ever."

"And ever."

* * *

**i don't even know man**


	33. Chapter Thirty-three: Cronus

The next thing you know, you can feel the ground again. You're curled into a ball, arms wrapped around your head, and the pain that had been oh-so-nicely-dampened during the last part comes right back. You whimper. You don't know if he's still here or if he's gone, but you don't even want to know. You have your eyes shut and you're going to keep it that way. You're just going to lay here until you feel better. Forever, if that's what it takes. The smell and taste and feel of blood, blood everywhere is making want to kind of throw up, though, so you might end up getting up just for that.

Wait. No, you already threw up.

Ew.

You stay curled in a ball for a while longer - you have no idea how long, it could've been anywhere from five minutes to an hour, before someone grabs onto your shoulder.

"Cronus? Shit! Cronus?"

Something in the back of your head registers it as being Dirk. You swallow and prepare yourself to open your eyes. You can do it. Probably. Unless they're totally swollen shut or something, you don't know.

You feel him pick you up and you let yourself be carried, loosening your hold on yourself a little bit. You need to hold yourself if he'll hold you, even if you're covered in blood and vomit and are shaking like a grub. Even if you can still feel tears leaking out from under your eyelids and your nose is clogged with snot and you're overall just _disgusting_ right now.

He carries you for a while and your hands make their way from your hair to his shirt, clutching it, trying to find comfort in the warmth that is Dirk Strider. You can hear other trolls call out to him as the two of you pass, but you're in too much pain to pay much attention to it. You can hear Latula, and Mituna's annoying, grating laugh, and Rufioh, who actually sounds a little concerned, but then again, when _doesn't_ Rufioh sound concerned? He may be the coolest guy out of all of you, and definitely totally hot, but he always sounds so concerned. It's kind of sweet, you guess. You still have to perfect the art of sounding concerned. Maybe you'd be better at it if you actually cared what other people had to say.

You let your thoughts wander like that, trying to block out the pain that seems to be coming from every point of your body, until you get back to your hive. Instead of carrying you to your bed like he did the last time Kurloz made ground meat out of you, he heads straight for the bathroom. You don't want him to put you down, but put you down he does, stripping you of your clothes - they're mostly torn up and bloody anyway, and it's not like you ever totally hate losing your clothes - and setting you in the tub. Your eyes are open by now, and everything's a little less blurry. It's still blurry, of course, you can't actually fucking see without you glasses, but less blurry than a few minutes ago.

Even though you're sitting down and in prime position to take a bubble bath, that is, if bubbles wouldn't hurt your cuts as much as you're pretty sure they would, he turns on the shower. It's burning hot as usual, and with it pounding down on you and getting into your body, it _hurts_. You try to talk, but find that you can't quite yet and just whimper. Your throat is sore. Probably from all the screaming you just did.

"What? Is it too hot? Shit, sorry, shit..." he mutters, turning it colder. You sigh a little, relieved. You'd been wanting to tell him that his showers are always too fucking hot _forever_, but you didn't want to offend him or anything. That would probably make him not want to shower with you again.

"Who was it? It was that fucking mime, right? I'm going to kill him. Are you okay? Shit, no, of course you're not okay, fucking /look/ at you. This is worse than last time. I'm going to fucking _annihilate_ that fucking mime. Fucking Christ."

You swallow and look at him. One of your eyes is still really blurry and still doesn't feel like you can open it quite yet, but with the one good one you look at him. You open your mouth to try and talk, but he silences you with a very gentle, very hesitant kiss. You keep your mouth shut as he washes your cuts clean, being especially careful on the huge bruise on your back and the very, very nasty ones on your chest.

You're already forgetting what happened, apart from the brutal beatdown you suffered. But... there was something else, right? Something terrifying... that fucking... mind thing... right? You think so. Something horrible in your head. Yeah. That's right, right? You can't be sure. You decide to focus on Dirk cleaning you up, getting all wet while doing so, face set in a scowl.

He looks really hot right now, you think. At least, from what you can see.

Once he's done, he lifts you up out of the tub like you're a little kid and wraps you up in one of your precious fluffy towels. He looks you straight in the eye. "This is what's going to happen," he says. "I'm going to make you some popcorn and start Grease. Then, I'm going to go kick that fucking mime's ass. Then I'll come back and we can cuddle and watch more greaser movies. Does that work for you?"

You have to admit, that doesn't sound too bad.

On the other hand... what if Dirk doesn't survive it? He's alive, and a godtier, but it's Kurloz. You could totally see Dirk disappearing forever. And... you were going to grow a spine one of these days, weren't you? Doesn't that include telling your boyfriend not to commit suicide by Makara?

Yeah... yeah, you think it probably does.

"Wait," you say. Your voice is still kind of scratchy, and _damn_, does your throat hurt. "I... don't go."

He gives an awkward, one-armed hug. "I'll be right back," he assures you. You shake your head.

"No... I..." you flounder for words, feeling yourself blush. "He'll hurt you, Dirk. You got off easy last time."

"I can take care of myself," he says, and then he's out the door, freshly made popcorn right beside you and Grease playing on your TV before you can even blink. Wait. When did you even get in your bedroom?

You decide that, hell, he's already gone, so you can't really do anything about it now. You decide to just watch your movie and eat your popcorn, trying not to move your right arm too much.

* * *

**yeah i don't know what's going on**


	34. Chapter Thirty-four: Dirk

Your name is Dirk Strider and you have never been so pissed in your _life_.

You need to find that mime. You need to find that fucking mime and rip his fucking head off. None of that bullshit 'fighting' you tried last time, no, this time you're going to annihilate him and there's nothing anyone can say to make you think differently.

Some of the trolls are trying to talk to you, but you don't have time for them. You've become sort of popular in the dead troll community, which is sort of weird, but you don't have time for that right now.

_Fuck_, where is he? Isn't that typical. Right when you find Cronus, you're on another manhunt. Only this guy you don't want to kiss.

After a few more minutes of searching, you get impatient and corner Latula. "You," you say, pointing at her. She skateboards over to you, setting a foot on the ground to steady herself when she's close enough.

"What's up, coolkid?" she asks, grinning widely. You sort of want to punch her in the face right now. But no, you'll save that for Kurloz.

"Where's the mime?" you ask. "Kurloz, or whatever the fuck his name is."

"Kurloz? Man, I dunno," she says, shrugging. "Why do you want him? He's totes creepy."

"I want to murder him," you say.

She giggles. "Ohhh, did he hurt your boyfriend? I don't even know _why_ you bother with that douchebag. Like, seriously, he's such-"

You leave before she can finish. You can find this asshole on your own, you don't need trolls telling you how much they hate your boyfriend. Nobody likes him. You get it. You're not _deaf_, or _blind_, you can see that they don't like him and you can hear it when they make fun of him. Really, the fact that he's been beaten to a pulp twice in a very close period of time would tip you off, if nothing else. That, and the fact that he very obviously did not have any sexual contact before you.

He's so fucking adorable.

But, anyway, enough thinking about that, you need to find the stupid mime and kill him.

You see his hair first, and put on an extra burst of speed. You attack him from behind - sure, it might not be traditional, or moral, in some ways, but you just want to kill him. You manage to get the sword through his shoulder before he turns faster than you can comprehend and sends you flying. You keep a hold on your sword, so you don't fly _quite_ as far, but it still catches you off-guard. He sees you and nods, not even looking at his shoulder wound. That fucking mime.

Fuck it. You'll just cut off his head. He can't ignore _that_. Besides, decapitation solves everything. Absolutely everything.

Yep. You're just trying to postpone the moment where you have to figure out how, exactly, you're going to cut his head off. Just one good, fast, swing, and you should be able to do it. But how to get _close_ enough? You can improvise. Yep. Improvisation and decapitation.

You go for him again, and he dodges with that same speed. He's smiling. The fucker is smiling. He's dodging and smiling and _you really just want him to die._

Even though he's already dead, which _could_ be why he's just ignoring his wounds, but Cronus feels it, so you're pretty sure that if you cut off his _head_, he'll feel it. Yeah. You've got a solid plan. You should be good.

You keep at it, slashing and hacking and nicking him a few times, but nothing more than a few drops of purple blood makes it out from his skeletal bodysuit. You swear under your breath, deciding to fuck everything and go for it. You launch yourself off of the ground, and already you can see that it's going to work. It's going to work, you've got the trajectory right and the speed's good and all you need to do is swing at the right ti-

Something hits you. It's not something that you can see; actually, you can't really see much of anything right now. It's gone dark. Sort of purple-y, you guess. You're on the ground. When did you get there? You thought... you were in the air, right? About to chop the fucking mime's head off. You'd timed it perfectly, too.

But now...

What happened?

The mime is still standing a few feet away. Your shades are gone, for some reason. Maybe when you got knocked out of the air, they got knocked off? You're... not quite sure. You're not quite sure of anything, really. You still have a hold of your sword. You can still kill the mime, even if your shades are gone. You don't... you don't _really_ need them at the moment, right? It's not like you were going to stab him with the pointy bit.

You stand up. You're shaky, swaying a little. It's getting harder to keep a hold on your sword. It's like it's getting _heavier_ or something. You're a strong guy, but it's getting too much for even you. But you can't let go of it. If you let go of it, how can you cut his head off?

Something hits you from the side and you spin, flopping around like a rag doll and trying to see what got you. The mime's still just a few feet away, right in front of you, so it can't be him. It's... what? You don't see anything. It can't be... no, you taste blood, something's definitely there.

You have to make a conscious effort to move your tongue. "Who's there?" you yell, and your voice is hoarse, for some reason. You weren't making any noise before, were you? What _were_ you doing before this? Taking care of Cronus, right? And then... you were going to go fight the mime. Yeah. You were going to cut his head off. And he's right _there_, not moving at all, and for some reason, neither are you.

The thing hits you again, causing you to stumble forward a few steps. The mime moves backward, staying the exact same distance away from you.

Well, fuck.

It's an illusion.

It has to be.

The thing attacking you has to be the mime. You don't know how he found you first or how he knew that you wanted to attack him, but-

It hits you again, and at this point your sword is so heavy that you topple to the ground. What were you thinking about? Cronus, right? How much of a douchebag he is - no, no, how much you love him and how much of an adorable dork he is when he's doing things he loves. How cute he is watching Grease, with his glasses on and eyes gleaming. How much of an asshole he is to Mituna, and how much he deserves to die a second time. How you've never heard his music, but how you'd love to because it _has_ to be as great as him. It seems to be the only thing he cares about. It's just a plea for attention, just like everything else he does. He's just a douchey attention whore who doesn't know when to stop. He's got a great ass. He's a scrawny motherfucker with absolutely nothing going for him.

The thing hits you again, throwing you out of your thoughts. It's strange, you've never really been annoyed with Cronus before now. You wonder when that happened? Must have been a while ago... it probably just built up without you noticing.

After one more hit from the thing, whatever it is, and you're out of the dark, purple-y place. It's bright out. Your shades are a few feet away, and you're startled to find how battered you feel. Damn. What the hell happened to you? You put on your shades, grab your sword, and stand up, stretching. Well. You should probably head to Cronus's house. It's not like you have anything better to do.

* * *

**this is getting too out-of-control i don't even know what's going on here but i am on the fast track to the ending i'm throwing around**


	35. Chapter Thirty-five: Dirk

"Did you kill hi- holy shit, what did he do to your _face_?"

Cronus is on you as soon as you enter his bedroom, taking his face in your hands and looking at your cheek. Your face does hurt, come to think of it. But he doesn't need to _touch_ it, Christ, doesn't he know that'll make it worse? You bat his hands away, and he withdraws a little, looking hurt. He mutters something about finding you a mirror and hurries out of the room. You sit down on his bed. Grease is paused, right on John Travolta doing some questionable dancing. Your fingers absentmindedly dip into the bowl of popcorn on the bed. It's cold, and way too salty, but other than that, it's okay. Better than nothing.

He comes back then, holding a hand mirror. He gives it to you without a word.

Huh. Looks like someone hit you with a skateboard, almost. That's a little weird. Latula, maybe? It couldn't have been Mituna, you're pretty sure he couldn't even lift a skateboard without falling over.

Cronus, however, has different ideas. "It must've been Mituna," he mutters, sitting down beside you. "I hear he's actually lucid when he's around Kurloz. That stupid mime must have... I _told_ you not to go."

"Told me not to go where?" you ask. He's sort of way too close and not wearing enough clothes. He's hot, sure, but... you just sort of want some space right now. You scoot over a little bit, sandwiching the popcorn between the two of you. "I just woke up like this a ways away from here and decided to come over."

Cronus's face goes from hurt to horrified. "I can't fucking believe it," he says. "You don't remember anything? Not telling me to stay here and watch Grease while you, and I quote, "fucking annihilated" him? Is this why you're being so weird? He put something in your head, I know he did. That's why you can't remember anything. You went out there and you fought him and he did his stupid mind shit."

"...Mind shit?" you say, raising an eyebrow. Cronus nods. He looks like he just got out of a fight, too. One where he was _seriously_ on the losing end. "Dude, I don't remember fighting the mime troll since the picnic day."

"You don't remember coming and finding me?" he asks, voice small. You shake your head. "Or... or cleaning me up, or making me popcorn and going out to fight him?"

You shake your head. He sighs, crossing his arms tightly over his bare chest.

"He put something in your head," he says. You shrug.

"If you say so," you say, and you soften a bit. Sure, he's a douchebag, but you can't really stay mad at him like this. You remove the popcorn and put an arm around his shoulders, hugging him to you. He sighs, nuzzling into you. "Sorry I was being a dick. Just a little frustrated, I guess. Annoyed that I woke up all beat up in a random clearing with no fucking idea how I'd got there."

"We'll kill him together next time," he mumbles. "I'll get my Ahab's Crosshairs fixed. Fuck those stupid wands, _that's_ a real weapon."

"That's the spirit," you say, grinning. You lift his chin - carefully, you don't want to hurt him - and kiss him. You don't mean for it to go any further, because he is seriously beat up and you're feeling sore yourself, but, as usual, he has his own agenda. He flicks his tongue out, and you let him in, running your hand down his bruised skin and gills. Although he seemed to have taken control of the situation at first, he falls into his usual submissive position easily, whining and practically begging for more. You give him more, moving from his mouth to every patch of unbruised skin, kissing and nipping and _loving_ it as he shudders under your touch. His whines have turned into moans, especially as you find an undamaged gill and tease until you can tell his bulge is totally ready to go.

You untie the towel from his waist slowly, and he whines, shaking and mewling and writhing. You've always felt a bit weird about putting your mouth around his bulge, but God knows how many times he's given you awesome blowjobs, so you decide to just go for it. It's salty, and slimy, but not overall unpleasant, because it's pure _Cronus_.

You tease it with your tongue, taking as much in your mouth as you can without your gag reflex kicking in. He shudders, squeaking a little. His fingers are tangled in your hair, pulling a little, but you don't mind. You keep at it, getting used to the feel of it on your mouth, your tongue running along the bottom. He yelps suddenly, pulling on your hair a little harder than feels nice. You sit up, and almost as soon as you do his bulge lets out a shitload of that violet genetic material, splattering all over the bed and your pants. He's bright purple.

You laugh a little, kissing him. "At least it's a dreambubble," you say quietly. "We don't actually have to clean it up if we don't want to."

"I usually do, though," he says, still blushing. You raise an eyebrow. "I-I mean, when- fuck."

You decide to be nice to him and ignore the last bit. "We're both sore and tired," you reason. "We don't have to clean it up. We go get ourselves some... fucking ice cream or something, and then cuddle while we're watching shitty greaser movies."

"They're not shitty," he objects, and you smirk. "You like The Outsiders."

"Alright," you say. "The Outsiders is _not_ a shitty movie. Neither is Stand By Me, but I wouldn't really call that a greaser movie. Rumble Fish is a little weird. Grease is a shitty, albeit faintly entertaining classic."

"Classics have to be good," he says. "It's why they're classics."

"Nah, there are tons of so-called classics that are shit," you respond, kissing his nose. He wriggles a little. "There's a difference between a shitty classic and a classic that is total shit."

"That doesn't even make any sense."

"Sure it does! Grease and Battle Royale are shitty classics. Battle Royale being a newer classic, but a classic nonetheless. You've got to admit they're pretty shitty, but they're awesome, too," you say. "Believe me, I have a friend who likes all sorts of movies that are total shit, as well as shitty ones."

"So, where does The Outsiders fit in there?" he asks, stealing another kiss before you can answer. You kiss him back for a few seconds before pulling away to answer.

"That's just a good movie."

"It's got Matt Dillon," he says, yawning a little and standing up. He's totally naked, the towel left on the bed.

"And Rob Lowe," you say. "Hey, I'm going to take a quick shower before we grab some food and watch shitty movies. Join me?"

* * *

**i don't know i just want them to be happy**


	36. Chapter Thirty-six: Dirk

You have to be really careful in the shower - mostly because of him, though you don't want to hurt any more than you already do, either. You stand closest to the stream of water nonetheless - sure, he's literally a fish troll, but you don't want to hurt him. Being in water would _probably_ do him some good (you mentally add 'swimming' to your list of possible dates), but not burning hot water shooting straight at his injuries. Especially his gills. Hell, most of those don't even look like gills anymore, more like cuts regularly leaking blood.

If he wasn't already dead, you would be seriously worried right now.

He doesn't seem too worried, like he's used to it, which sort of pisses you off, but if you take what he said into consideration, you already _tried_ to fucking annihilate the mime troll, and failed miserably. So, unless the two of you go after him together, you're probably not going to get anything accomplished. God _damn_ it, how the hell did he get into your head?

You can research it, maybe - and by research, you mean talk to some of the other trolls, try and find out what his deal is. The cat one, maybe, you've seen her around him.

This is looking to be one of your legendary infinite showers, and he's standing patiently in the shower right in front of you, just sort of looking at you. You shake yourself out of your thoughts and focus on him instead. He's a nice distraction, especially when the two of you are in the shower together, so close that if you leaned down a little bit you could kiss him. And you do, one arm wrapped loosely around his waist as to not hurt him and the other stroking his hair. He whines, deep in his throat, and presses himself against you.

He squeaks, involuntarily, and you can tell that it's hurting him. You pull away, letting the water wash over you quickly and stepping out. "Hey," he objects. "I wasn't done yet."

"Don't hurt yourself just because you want sex," you say, drying off your hair with a towel. "I mean, sure, I'm fucking hot, but doesn't mean you have to keep trying to go at it while you're covered in bruises."

"You started it," he pointed out.

"Wasn't meant to be sexy," you say.

He snorts. "We were both naked in the shower and you kiss me, and that's not supposed to be _sexy_? What the hell is sexy in your eyes, then?"

You just wink at him and leave the room, wrapping the towel around your waist. You'll probably put on some underwear later, but for now, while you're getting the two of you some food and thinking about what movies the two of you should watch, you can stay undressed.

He's out of the shower a few minutes later and, like you, he's just wearing a towel. It looks like he seriously had to debate even putting that on, though, because it's not really even tight, just sort of hanging on his hips and looking like it could fall off at any second.

Of course, were you really expecting anything else?

"So, what are we gonna watch?" he asks, watching you as you scoop ice cream that's way too frozen into a huge bowl. Actually, he's just looking at your chest. Yeah... once again, were you really expecting anything else?

You shrug. "Dunno. You like horror movies?" you ask, grinning at him. He thinks about it, then shrugs, grinning a little.

"We could try it out," he says, and you smirk. You promised him shitty movies, and he will get shitty movies. Shitty Stephen King movies. You're thinking Christine, Pet Sematary (which, once you get to the Zelda part, is pretty creepy), maybe even the IT miniseries, if you're feeling like you need some Tim Curry dressed as a psychotic clown in your date night.

"Stephen King night it is," you say. You pause, glancing at him. "You up for some chocolate on this?"

It's chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream, so it's not like chocolate would totally be going overboard, but he grimaces. "Wouldn't that be too sweet?"

"C'mon, it can't be too sweet," you reason. "We can put some whipped cream on it, too."

Cronus, obviously thinking of the _last_ time the two of you got your hands on some whipped cream, nods. "Alright," he says. You grin and pull one of those cans of whipped cream out, swirling some on the ice cream with a flourish that was totally necessary. You add the chocolate and, after a bit of debating, a few maraschino cherries, too. He's pretty close now, and his mouth is slightly open, so you push a cherry into his mouth, too. He jumps, but manages to react before your finger is totally out of your mouth and sucks on it a little as he gets the sauce off of the cherry. God _damn_. He needs to stop getting you to want to fuck him when he's all beat up.

"Okay," you say. "Now put some underwear on, and we can cuddle and watch some shitty Stephen King movies."

He pouts at this, but you pop some underwear onto your body and kiss him chastely, with not even a _promise_ of tongue, and he complies, after sighing and making a big deal about it.

You make a little nest of blankets and pillows in front of his bed, between his TV and his mattress. There's not much room, and he's half on your lap, which is really distracting you right now, but it's comfortable and warm and the ice cream is good and the movies are shitty - you start with IT, which is probably one of the worst Stephen King movies made, right after The Langoliers, but it's entertaining, and that's what matters - and overall, you're happy.

You almost forget about that stupid mime troll, and the few times you do think about him, you manage to push it out of your mind while Cronus is wincing away from Tim Curry and into your body. You're not about to let him ruin your date. You can think about him later.

* * *

**also woah sudden burst of reviews thanks guys 's been all screwed up lately with notifications but yeah thanks also there will probably be more drama soon because why not**


	37. Chapter Thirty-seven: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you keep falling asleep.

You fell asleep a few times during the clown movie, and then a few times during the car movie - it _was_ a pretty sweet car, you have to admit that - and then near the end of them movie with the guy who looked weirdly hot with half of his head torn off, you totally fell asleep. You just woke up, and Dirk's asleep now, too, arms wrapped around you and wow he's gotten good at not being stabbed with your horns when the two of you sleep together.

You like that for a few more minutes, enjoying the warmth and comfort he gives you, but after a while, you start to get a little restless. You wriggle a little bit, stretching out your legs and sliding out after them. He totally falls over, face-first into the pillows. You look at him and smile a little. He's hot regularly, but there's just something you really love about seeing him all cute and sleeping like that, worming his way into the absolute middle of the blankets.

You stretch, shivering and trying to ignore how fucking sore you are. Like, seriously. Everywhere. That stupid Kurloz. You know, you were feeling weird about it before, but you might actually agree to go try and kill him with Dirk by your side. Sure, it didn't work well before, but, to be honest, by that point your head had already gotten beaten in by Latula, so you weren't really at your peak performance. And if you can get your Ahab's Crosshairs fixed, you should be _golden_. Him with his sword, you with your Ahab's Crosshairs, Kurloz won't have a chance.

Maybe a shower will help. You look at Dirk for a few more seconds, then turn off the TV and head to the bathroom. Since you're all alone, you get to control the temperature, so it's not burning your gills off, nor freezing them off. It's pretty great. You sing a little in the shower, too, just some lyrics you've been working on, but your throat kind of hurts so you cut that out pretty quick.

You spend a longer time in the shower than you usually do, and Dirk is awake by the time you're done. He ambushes you outside of the bathroom, kissing your nose. You blush a little. God damn it. He needs to stop being cutesy. You don't know how to deal with it. He disappears inside the bathroom, and you head back to your room, deciding to get dressed for a day out even though you're pretty sure you'll be staying inside. No shame in looking good, right? You can head into the bathroom when Dirk's done, or maybe before Dirk's done, the steam will fog up your mirror, but you can deal with it, and grease your hair. Yeah. You're going to look good today, bruises and all.

And didn't greasers have bruises all the time, anyway? From like, fights and stuff? Greasers were tough guys, with awesome hair and awesome cars and girls all over them and _everything_, you're pretty sure they got in a lot of fights, too. And they looked _hot_ with bruises, you think. Do you look hot with bruises?

Probably. When _don't_ you look hot, right?

You contemplate this a little further while pulling on your jeans, wincing a little. They're sort of tight, and it sort of hurts, but you'll be fine. You're not wearing underwear, as per usual, but maybe you should put on some looser pants. Like, not ones that will hurt you, they're so tight.

...Nah, you'll be fine. Your shirt is always a little baggy, it makes up for it. Everyone else can see how great of an ass you've got while totally not looking at how fucking scrawny and un-muscular you are. You do have a reason for everything you do.

You do not, however, know where a cigarette is. You used to have a whole pack, but they just keep getting dropped or lost or beaten into the ground along with you or thrown into the ocean by trolls who don't appreciate your romantic solicitations.

You have to have **one** left, right? You try to be careful with them. You could've sworn you had at least one left...

It might be in the bathroom. You head in there, and wow it's really warm. Dirk doesn't pay any attention to you, instead choosing to keep just standing in there. You can see his basic outline through the rather flimsy shower curtain and _damn_. Wow. You are never going to get used to the sight, if only partial, of him totally unclothed.

Wait. You need a cigarette.

You dig around in the cabinets and eventually find one, squished underneath a some extra hair products. You straighten it out and set it down on the sink while you rub off the mirror with your hand, trying to get at least a _little_ bit of seeing space so that you can properly do your hair.

You have to rub the steam off the mirror a few more times, but eventually you get your hair done. You put the cigarette in your mouth, trapping it between your teeth, and looking at yourself. Yeah. Yeah, the bruises, along with the hair that you couldn't really get perfect, make you look disheveled and attractive. Yes. This is probably the best situation you could have probably asked for. God _damn_ you're hot. And sort of in pain. But mostly hot.

Dirk gets out of the shower then and looks at you. "Woah," he says. "Didn't know you were in here."

You glance at him, looking appreciatively and almost forgetting to respond. "Yeah," is all you can manage. He smirks, keeping eye contact with you as he dries himself off, starting with his hair and moving down. Wow. Uh. Wow. You really don't. Um. _Wow_. You don't think that you can actually. Um. Yeah, you really wish you weren't so beat up, he's fucking _torturing_ you with this.

Once he's done and has his normal tanktop and jeans on, he pulls you into him, being overly gentle but also somehow annoyingly sexy at the same time. God damn it Dirk Strider.

"We going out today?" he asks. You shrug.

"I just wanted to look nice, but then I looked in the mirror and was like, wow, it would be a public injustice if only Dirk Strider got to see this, and plus I want to show off my bruises, which make me look even more disheveled and handsome, by the way, but also make people feel sorry for me," you say. He nods.

"I think I should be the only one, though," he says, kissing you once on the mouth and okay yeah you're not going to make it though the day if it's just the two of you.

"Yeah, well, if you're gonna keep teasing me like this, we've got to stop being alone because I'm about ready to just, like, attack you with sex and kissing but mostly sex."

He does laugh at that. "Alright, Cro," he says. "We can go out today."

* * *

**i don't even know man**


	38. Chapter Thirty-eight: Cronus

The two of you head outside, hands linked, you hoping that you can maybe sneak in some makeouts in-between showing people how hot of a couple you are, especially all bruised up like this. He's not as tragically beat up as you are, of course, but his cheek is kind of purple and you can see a bruise on his neck, disappearing down into his shirt. It's another one of those things that makes you want to murder Kurloz, but the contrast against his pale skin is sort of worth it. Not really, but sort of.

The only person you end up seeing is Porrim, but, to be honest, she's probably the best one you could've run into. She nods to Dirk and looks at you curiously.

"I see that the two of you seem to have run into some trouble," she says, and you smirk a little.

"Nothing we couldn't handle," you say, and you can just tell that Dirk's rolling his eyes. You can't actually see, because you're not looking at him and, anyway, he's wearing his sunglasses, but you can just tell he is. You've known him long enough for that. "It was a totally awesome fight. You should've been there."

It really was good she wasn't there, because you're pretty sure that it consisted of Kurloz wiping the floor with you while you cried and screamed and really had no idea what was going on because of his freaky mind shit, but she can _think_ it was epic, right? Right. You've always wanted to impress Porrim Maryam, mostly because she's really hot and you want(ed?) to get in her pants, but also because she knows what she's doing. Probably the only one on your whole team who does, actually.

"So your matespritship is still going strong, I see," she says, and you nod, almost too eager. Dirk squeezes your hand.

"Yep," he says. "Sorry, don't think I caught your name before...?"

"Yes, you have," she says, the corners of her mouth quirking up into either a smile or an expression of total annoyance and hatred, you can't be sure which. "But you were under stress at the time, so I suppose I can repeat it. Porrim Maryam. And you are Dirk Strider, 'but that's not the point.'"

You look at them, trying to figure out when they might've met. You decide that it doesn't matter, because he doesn't seem interested in her _at all_ - seriously, he hasn't looked at her cleavage once, it's sort of weird, you've looked at least three times by now, and that's cut down drastically from when you _didn't_ have a matesprit.

"Oh, yeah, right," he says. He's sort of pink. It's cute. He doesn't know how to interact with people and it's really cute. You really want to kiss him right now, like really, really badly. "Uh. Sorry."

She just smiles and you can tell that she has the hots for him. You try to glare at her and cling onto Dirk's arm, trying to send the message that 'hey, even if you were hoping for a black relationship humans don't do quadrants they only have one person and that's it', but you're not quite sure it got across. Dirk glances at you, a little confused.

"Let's go find Rufioh or something," you said. "You guys were having a pretty intense conversation about anime before, weren't you? You guys could keep going with that, I bet he'd love to find a friend to talk about anime with. Since the only other person who even sort of likes that is Damara, and he sort of likes to steer clear of her these days, because she sort of paralyzed him from the neck down once, and also keeps stealing his lusus. Wow, you haven't ever met my lusus, right? I-"

He kisses you to shut you up and you have never loved your inability to stop talking so much. It's nothing, mostly because you're standing in front of Porrim and also because it's just to shut you up, he's made it totally clear that he's not going do anything more than kissing while the both of you are so beat up. "We can go talk to Rufioh if you want," he says. He nods to Porrim, who gives him a small smile and a wave back.

God, if you weren't how you were you would platonically hate her right now. But as is, it's totally not platonic and you have to look at Dirk for a few minutes to get the image of hatefucking her out of your head.

You walk in silence for a few minutes. He's a pretty quiet guy, unless you get a conversation going. You, usually, are not this quiet, but you don't really feel like starting to ramble about lusii again and you don't really have anything else trying to force its way into your head, apart from hatefucking Porrim and you are _not_ going to talk about that.

The two of you end up in a totally deserted, totally awesome place to make out in. You look at him, and he tries not to look at you because he _knows_ what you want. You kiss him, combing your fingers through his hair and loving it as he gives in with a reluctant moan, wrapping his arms around you, thumbs hooked in your belt loops. You kiss him as hard as you can without tasting blood, and then a little harder, not really minding the taste. He's hard, you can feel it, he wants this just as much as you do.

After a few more minutes of kissing him, flicking your tongue into his mouth and overall trying to get him to cooperate, he takes control like he usually does and god _damn_ is it hot. You're backed against the wall of some random hive, and his mouth has moved from yours to your jaw and neck, feathering over your bruises and making up for it on your unmarked skin. Your fingers are buried so deep in his hair you're not quite sure you're ever going to be able to get them out, but you're going to have to if you want him to do anything further down than your collarbone, which you are totally up for.

His hands are under your shirt, feeling instinctively around bruises and settling themselves into feeling your hipbones, which are relatively unmarred. He's always loved feeling them, rolling his hands over them and clamping down tight, your bones tight against your skin and similarly against his hands. You whine a little when he stops kissing you, but when you realize that he's taking your shirt off it's totally okay, even though it is sort of chilly out. It doesn't matter, he's kissing your chest and feeling your hips and was that a neigh.

He pauses, looking at you. "Was that a fucking neigh?"

You nod, and he picks up your shirt and gives it to you, glancing around.

"Wasn't you, right?" he asks. You nod again. You have the worst idea who it was.

...And, yep. You were right.

It's your fucking lusus.

"...What's that?" he asks, a little stunned.

"That's my lusus," you say, wriggling into your shirt. You're a little embarrassed. No. A lot embarrassed, actually. Of all the times for him to show up. "Dirk, meet Seahorsedad. Seahorsedad, Dirk."

Seahorsedad bobs his head a little and Dirk looks thoroughly weirded out.

"So this is like your dad," he says. You, who really only have a basic understanding of what he means by that, hesitantly nod. "So it's like your dad caught us making out."

"...Yeah," you say. You're pretty sure Seahorsedad disapproves, if only because Dirk's a human. You never know, though, he could just be happy you're finally getting someone to like you. "I don't think he likes you."

Damn, you need Rufioh to tell you what your lusus _wants_. It's totally unfair that he knows what his lusus wants because he can communicate with animals. Stupid lowbloods and their psychic powers.

* * *

**oh seahorsedad you cockblock you**


	39. Chapter Thirty-nine: Cronus

It's sort of difficult to lose Seahorsedad, but once you lure him over to that weird orange guy, the weird orange guy steals him and leaves, which is nice, unlike the first time he did it, which was totally rude and uncalled for. He'd gotten your hopes up for nothing... well, not for nothing, for your lusus, which is somehow even worse. That's like finding out that your matesprit was actually in love with your ancestor or something.

"That was really weird, not gonna lie," Dirk says, an arm slung around your shoulders. You're mostly just trying not to stab him with your horns, but so far you've been doing pretty well and you're not that worried about getting your horn stuck in his flesh. "I mean, dude, your dad is a fucking gigantic seahorse."

You shrug. You don't think it's that weird. Sure, humans don't have lusii, but yours is just left over from when you weren't a 1950's style human greaser. And there's nothing wrong with Seahorsedad. Better than Meenah's monstrosity.

"Yeah, let's stop talking about that," you say, and he nods.

"Okay."

It's silent for a few more moments. It's really fucking boring out here. You wish something would happen, preferably something that involved the two of you having sex. But, no, Seahorsedad has probably even ruined your chance for a decent make-out session. Fucking Seahorsedad.

"...So, do you really want to see if we can find Rufioh?" he asks. You think about it for a few seconds, then nod.

"Yeah, if Horuss sees me with you, he'll probably stop looking like he's going to kill me every time I so much as _look_ at Rufioh. Okay, probably not, because he just sort of looks like that all the time, but it would be _nice_, you know? Like, what did I ever do to him. His matesprit has a history of infidelity, I was just waiting for the next time Rufioh was too scared to break up with someone and wanted something new, with less sweat," you say. After a few seconds, you add, "And I don't even _want_ that anymore."

Dirk is just sort of looking at you and you don't know what to do with this except keep talking. You're sort of running out of things to talk about, but whatever. You can keep talking about Rufioh or Horuss or how hot Dirk is right now like wow maybe if you stop just thinking all of this and say it out loud he'll kiss you to shut you up.

Oh, who even cares, you'll kiss him.

You kiss him, one of those quick ones that annoys the hell out of you but that he seems to like. He blushes a little. He always does that when you kiss him in public. Not when you're making out in a dark alley or behind some trees or stuff like that, because he's too distracted to be embarrassed then, but when you're just out and about, walking around, and you kiss him. It's cute. You're probably blushing right now, too, actually.

"What was that for?" he asks. You smirk and don't answer. Maybe you should go back to your hive and make out. Maybe you should duck into some hive and make out.

"Seahorsedad interrupted us," is all you can come up with after a few more seconds. "We should find some hive and finish up there."

He looks at you, biting his lip. He doesn't want to hurt you and, yeah, that's cool and all, but you are probably older than him and, really, the only thing he's better at you at is in the muscle department, in which you are severely lacking. You're not that much shorter than him, even. If you say that you're fine and want to have sex, you are _fine_ and _want to have sex_.

"Come on," you say. "I'm fine. And if it hurts, that's kind of hot, right?"

"Didn't know you were into that," he says, raising an eyebrow. You're actually not, but you can be. You totally can be. "But seriously, man, I don't want to hurt you. You'll tell me if you're really hurting, right?"

"Yeah, sure," you say. "Now, come on. I'm getting cold. We should find some random hive and get it on in there."

"Alright," he says. "Alright."

He tries to be picky with it but you just go into the first unlocked one, pulling him behind you. There's never anyone inside any of these things, even the ones that look well-kept are totally empty. As soon as the door is closed behind you, you turn around and kiss him, your arms around his neck. He kisses you back, holding back a little but you end up with your back to the wall anyway with his hands on your hips.

After a few more moments of just kissing each other, him being a little too reluctant and you trying a little too hard, his mouth starts to miss yours and he kisses down your jaw, your neck, all the way to the base of your neck with his hands fumbling for the button of your jeans. Your hips buck against him almost of their own accord, and he has to pause in his kissing you to focus on getting the button of your jeans undone. You wish you would've worn jeans that weren't quite so tight. They're going to be a bitch to get off. Already they're seriously constricting your bulge. _Damn_ it. You're such an idiot.

Eventually, though he gets your pants down and you sigh. His hand goes to your bulge and the sigh turns into a half-moan. _Fuck_, fuck, _fuck_. Your bulge curls around his hand, and he strokes it and _oh fuck he's good._

You whine when his hand leaves your bulge and try and stop any more embarrassing noises from coming out of your mouth after that. You're so fucking _loud_.

"Stop going easy on me," you manage to say. He looks at you, biting his lip. "Come on, Dirk. I'll tell you if it hurts. It'll be fine."

"...Well, if you're sure..." he says, but you have to grab his head to get him to kiss you again, kissing him harder than you do when your face isn't half a giant bruise. It hurts, sure, but it also feels good in a way that is raw and somehow, disgustingly awesome. He's still holding back a little, but after a few seconds he kisses you back just as hard as you're kissing him. Your back hits the wall, and it sends shivers through your spine. You're pretty sure you're going to end up quadrant-flipping, at least for this encounter, and it sort of excites you.

He bites down on your lower lip, just hard enough to be exciting, and you let out a weird little noise you didn't know you had in you, grinding your hips against him. Your bulge is free, it's seeking out _something_, and his dick is there, right underneath his pants. You can feel it, you can _tell_ it's hard and ready to go and your nook is practically _dripping_. You work at getting his jeans down. They're not as tight as yours were, but he's not making it easy, placing deep, intense kisses all the way from your mouth to your collarbone. Your fingers are shaking and you're making enough noise to wake up everyone in the next three dreambubbles, but _damn it_ you are going to get his pants off if it's the last thing you do.

And you do, yanking them down with a pride that you're not sure you've gotten from anything else you've ever done in your life. He falters in his rhythm, teeth scraping a bit against a cut and you shiver, adjusting yourself so that his dick is in prime position to get into your nook. He lifts you up a little bit, your back scraping against the wall, sending a combination of pain and pleasure as you feel his fingers under your legs, lifting you and helping your calves to wrap around him. It's right there, it's _right there_, why isn't he doing anything? You'll have to do it yourself.

You're a little bit too high, so you adjust yourself and go for it. Dirk, who has apparently been having some second thoughts, gives in immediately. It's _wonderful_, the best you've ever had, probably. He's biting your shoulder while he thrusts, and you're similarly shrieking and clutching him and wondering if you're going to fall and loving every second of it.

You seriously love Dirk Strider.

* * *

**i don't know i'm sick so it might be a little off dunno**


	40. Chapter Forty: Dirk

Your name is Dirk Strider and _wow_ you shouldn't have done that but _wow_ it was awesome.

After the two of you get cleaned up, you head back out, hands locked loosely, walking close. It's been a while since you first went into that hive; of course, you did take your time getting cleaned up and then had to wait for Cronus to wake up so that he could get cleaned up, too, during which _you_ had a quick nap, so, really it's not that surprising.

You don't really run into anyone on your way back, which is also not that surprising, seeing as you're in a fairly unpopulated area, but you don't even run into Seahorsedad. Orange guy must've taken him pretty far away. You _do_ run into a little bull flying around, but it basically ignores you, flying around, presumably looking for its troll. Rufioh, you think? You remember him talking about some bull-fairy monstrosity. It's no giant sea horse, but...

You're hungry.

"You up for helping me make some supper when we get back?" you ask him. He shrugs.

"Sure," he says. Huh. He's not very talkative right now, which is, to be honest, really weird, because he usually talks so much that you can't get a word in edgewise. But, you know, you can just enjoy each others' company silently. That's cool, too, even if it is really freaking weird. Then he opens his mouth again and it's normal. "Hey, um, can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah?" you say, wondering what the hell he could be talking about. The two of you just had sex. What kind of insecurities is he having?

He's quiet for a few seconds, and then finally gets the courage to speak. "I'm just making sure here... you won't leave me for Porrim, right? Especially after that _super awesome_ sex we had?"

You snicker a little. He looks hurt.

"What?"

"Dude, I'm not interested in chicks," you say. "Even if I'd never _met_ you, thus making the awesome sex we had nonexistent, I wouldn't go for her."

He looks relieved. "Really? 'Cause I have. Well. Tried. She usually just made me really sexually frustrated and then left," he says, holding tighter onto your hand. "I haven't seen her, like, at all since we started being... um..." he's struggling for words.

"Boyfriends?" you supply, and he nods.

"Right, yeah, that's the human word for it. It's just, in Grease and stuff it doesn't really give me enough vocabulary. But, anyway, yeah. I haven't seen her since that, and it's not like she ever liked me before, so she'll definitely not like me now. So, you don't ever have to worry about me cheating, either. With her or anyone else, really, because you're the only person who's ever said _yes_, which is way overdue but really awesome because you're really hot and awesome, too-"

You kiss him to shut him up. You're pretty sure he was going for that in the first place, because he sort of smirks, and when you pull away he doesn't start talking again. Yeah, you really caught a good one here.

"So, I'm feeling spaghetti tonight," you say. He looks at you with a slightly uncomprehending look. "Oh, hell no. You are not about to tell me that you guys don't have spaghetti."

"Describe it," he says. "It sounds sort of familiar, but it might just be something that lowbloods - not that I care or anything, blood color is basically nothing, especially since we're already dead - eat."

You exhale, thinking. How the hell do you describe spaghetti. Fucking amazing. But you're pretty sure that's not going to cut it.

"Okay," you say. "Well, noodles, and then tomato-y meat sauce. And parmesan cheese if you like it."

"Oh, yeah, I know what that is," he says. "I don't remember really eating it, but, yeah, I know what it is."

You kiss him again because why the fuck not. "Well, then, you are about to have the best meal of your life. Welcome to Cucina di Dirk."

The two of you make amazingly fast time back to his house, and then you whip out a pot, a box of spaghetti noodles, and some conveniently thawed hamburger.

"Throw like eight cups of water in here," you order Cronus. He does so, filling the pot up about three-quarters of the way full. "Now get it boiling. You know how to brown hamburger?"

"...Sure," he says, looking less than confident. You roll your eyes and turn a burner on medium-high, dropping the hamburger into a pan and throwing it on the burner. "Wow, you're sort of violent with this."

You grab a wooden spoon and hand it to him. "Just keep turning it until all of it's brown. We don't want salmonella or some shit like that. Even though you're technically dead. Salmonella's a bitch, though, so cook it all the way."

"Okay," he says, poking the hamburger with the spoon while you go to make the sauce. You do use a jar, because you're way too fucking hungry to make it totally from scratch, but you end up chopping up some peppers and carrots and shit like that, too. You have like a pound of hamburger in there, and while a ton of meat is awesome, vegetables are good, too. Actually, you don't think you're going to put the carrots in there. At least the peppers _add_ something.

The water is boiling by now and you quite literally throw the noodles in from across the kitchen, all of them making it into the pot, of course, because you're a Strider and you're fucking cool like that. Cronus jumps and swears, some raw hamburger flying off of the spoon. You're pretty sure he's been eating off of it, which is cool, he's dead and also an alien; he probably has a different reproductive system than you do.

After a few minutes, the noodles are done and you check on Cronus's hamburger. It's basically done, so you dump in the sauce and set him on stirring that while you drain the noodles. They're a little hard, but you like them that way.

You go back over to Cronus, who has some stray sauce on the corner of his mouth. You kiss it off, and he turns slightly purple. "Yum," you say, smirking, and his hand inches toward the wooden spoon. You're pretty sure he's going to try and throw some sauce on you, and then try to kiss it off, and you would totally let him if you weren't so hungry.

"Leave it for the next time we cook," you say, putting your hand over his. He sighs, but complies, and wow the two of you are so fucking domestic it's not even funny.

* * *

**yeah i was sick so i went to bed early the last few nights, which is why no crodirk**

**but uh now**

**i'm not entirely better but slightly better and i started earlier so uh**

**here**


	41. Chapter Forty-one: Dirk

He fucking loves the spaghetti.

Like, seriously, he's eaten half of the pot. You're kind of concerned about getting enough to eat yourself. There's enough for one more serving, and you can see him sort of eyeing it...

Aha, you have an idea to be totally fucking adorable and cheesy. It'll make him all flustered and basically the best idea you've ever had during your relationship with Cronus Ampora.

You're going to go all Lady and the Tramp on this shit.

You grab a clean plate and serve out the rest of the spaghetti onto it. He's looking at you, trying to figure out what you're going to do, so you just smirk at him. It has the desired effect of similarly pissing him off and turning him on.

"Are we sharing?" he asks after a while, and you smirk.

"Yep."

It goes well for a while, and you're just trying to maneuver one of the noodles into being stretched across the plate so that you both go for it, but it's just not working. You're going to have to get him to look away so that you can put one like that. "Hey, you wanna grab me a can of pop?" you ask, and he shrugs.

"Sure," he says, standing up and turning to go to the kitchen. It takes you about a second to get the spaghetti adjusted in your favor. It's only a matter of time before the two of you are adorable, especially considering how he just sort of scoops the noodles up with his fork and doesn't bother twirling them.

He's taking way too long getting your drink. Damn. You should've just pointed and said "Look at that" or something, you would've had enough time to rearrange pasta. You and your great ideas, right?

Finally he comes back, tossing you a can. "So why are we sharing, again?" he asks.

You don't really have a good answer for that so you stay quiet. He starts eating again, and you sort of just pick at it, waiting - aha. There we go. There it is. You go for it, faster than you would've thought possible, except not, you're Dirk fucking Strider, and manage to catch it right before it all goes in his mouth. He's blushing. Hell yes. You win. You're standing him, leaning over the table and with your mouth on his, about a fourth of the noodle in your mouth and the rest in his.

You're about to bite off your end when he sucks it into his mouth. You jump. He grins. Damn. He got you. You sit back down.

"Smooth," you say, and his grin widens.

"If that was what you were going for, you could've just skipped the noodles," he says. "Though it was pretty hot."

"Oh, yeah," you say. "Next thing you know we'll be trading gum like that. Hot."

He stretches, still grinning. He got you and he knows it. God, what a douche. What an adorable fucking douche. You love it. You can't even remember why you were mad at him that one time. Something to do with him being a douche...? But you don't really mind that most of the time. After all, it's not like he's ever been a total asshole to you. You saw him staring at Porrim's boobs earlier, true, but any guy who has any sort of interest in girls would be looking at that. They're sort of on display. Hell, you were even sort of distracted for a little bit. It was only a few seconds, and it was mostly like "holy shit tits," but you're not going to blame him for something like that, especially considering how fucking horny he is all the time.

He yawns. "Tired?" you say, and he makes a face.

"Yeah, sort of," he says. "I need to shower, though... want to join me?"

"Why?" you ask. "Your hair stuff got washed out when we showered after fucking in that abandoned house."

"Oh, right," he says, putting a hand up to his head. He freezes. "Wait. I was out. And my hair looked like _this_?"

"Calm down, we didn't run into anyone," you say. He still looks freaked, though. "You look good. Trust me."

"Oh, yeah, I'm going to listen to the guy who doesn't think Porrim is hot," he mutters. Okay, you take back what you thought earlier about not really minding how much of an asshole he is. He's sort of starting to piss you off right now.

"Dude, I told you, I'm not into chicks. If I were, I would totally tap that. But I'm not. Objectively speaking, she's hot. Alright?" you say. He's chewing on his lower lip, slumped down in his chair and god damn it when did this happen. Something happened to make him insecure and angry and it's sort of annoying. Not that you're not insecure sometimes, but _damn_. When he gets insecure, he gets pissy.

You stand up. Kissing him will make it better. You go over to his chair and peck him on the cheek. "Come on, Cro. Nobody saw you, and even if they did, it wouldn't have mattered because you look seriously fucking adorable all the time, even without your hair all greased up. With your hair done, you look seriously hot. Without, you look seriously cute. It just depends on what you're going for," you say. He looks at you.

"Hot. I'm always going for hot," he says. You grin a little and kiss him again, this time on the mouth. This lasts for a few seconds before he starts talking again. "It's just... with my hair down it reminds me of that stupid wizard phase and I was a total dork. Like, you do _not_ want to see pictures of me in my wizard phase. I didn't know what to do with my hair and I had glasses and _braces_-"

"Hold on," you say. _Braces_. This is great. "Braces?"

He makes a face. "It was horrible. I was - ugh, they got taken off just before we started the game, and a while into the game I started dressing a _little_ better, but, no. The wizard phase was horrible."

"It sounds adorable," you say, and he grimaces. "So, how about we watch a movie and then go to bed?"

"I'm going to fall asleep if it's not one of my movies," he says, and you grin.

"We'll find something that we haven't seen a thousand times," you say. "Johnny Depp was in that one movie you like, why don't we go with another one with him in it? Edward Scissorhands is awesome."

* * *

**i odn't even know man also this might be ending soon because i love love love crodirk but i**

**m getting sucked into another cronus pairing i ship cronus withl ike everyone it's horrible**


	42. Chapter Forty-two: Dirk

To his defense, he does make it halfway through the movie before falling asleep. He would probably enjoy these movies better if he would put his glasses on before sitting down to watch them, like he does with Grease, but he just refuses to. You don't know why. He's really fucking cute with his glasses. Like, seriously. He's such a dork. It's adorable.

But now he's sleeping, face buried into your shoulder. You ease him onto his bed, and he clutches your shirt. "Don'leave," he mutters, and you smile a little. Overall, he's not a bad guy. He has his faults, but at the end of the day he's just like anyone else. Better than some of the other ones, even.

You manage to untangle your shirt from his fingers. "Just going to get out of my jeans," you say, and he makes a noise that could be agreement. You're not totally sure, but you take off your jeans and t-shirt anyway. Then you work on getting his jeans and t-shirt off of him, which always takes quite a long time because of how goddam tight he wears his pants. It's nice when you're walking behind him, but not so nice when you're trying to get them off. As usual, he's not wearing any underwear, so you have to get some of those on him, too.

You don't have anything against people who sleep naked. You just don't want to cuddle with a fucking tentacle creeping around down there. At least with the underwear it's somewhat restrained.

After finally getting this feat of astronomical proportions completed, you crawl into bed beside him, pulling the blankets up over you. He latches onto you immediately, curling up as small as he can, burying his face in your chest. He's half-awake, half-asleep, and it's super fucking cute. You wrap your arms around him and actually use the incredibly wonderful, soft pillows that he has. Like, seriously. His bed is probably the best bed you have _ever_ slept on.

It's always sort of weird, sleeping in the dreambubble. You have a feel of what's going on where you're sleeping - you can still feel Cronus pressed up against you, and you can still feel the incredibly soft pillows and blankets and sheets, but there's also stuff going on out in the real world that you usually try and block out when you're with Cronus. Or, rather, you just let yourself go on autopilot. You kill stuff and you stand and look menacing or whatever's going on, but, really, you're not doing anything important.

It's a few hours before Cronus wakes up, and your dreambubble self wakes up with him. You put your 'real' self on autopilot again and focus most of your attention on Cronus.

He yawns, snuggling deeper into your chest for a few minutes, and then rolls away faster than you would've thought possible. He stretches, and yawns again, then shivers and crawls over you to go take a shower. He doesn't say one word to you, which is kind of interesting, but, then again, he rarely does. He's not really a morning person. He needs his shower before any sort of interaction whatsoever. You understand where he's coming from.

You decide to wait until he's out of the shower and surprise him while he's doing his hair. He's healing, his cuts scabbed over for the most part and his bruises fading, so you don't feel as bad about kissing him. Like he said, he's probably older than you, and he'll tell you if it hurts. Not that you actually think he'll tell you if it hurts. No, you're pretty sure he'll keep that to himself until he's passed out from the pain, just so that he can get laid. You know how he works. You've been dating him long enough. It's adorably frustrating.

You wait a few minutes after the water turns off. His shirt is on, but he's wearing nothing else. His fantastic ass is a little distracting, and you make your way over to him in a fairly decent time, wrapping your arms around his waist and resting your head on his shoulder. He jumps a little and looks at you in the mirror. "Hey," he says. Whatever he puts in his hair really smells, and you're pretty sure you might faint, but you keep your head right where it is.

"What do you want to do today?" you ask. "Wanna see if we can find a place to go swimming? You being a fish troll and all."

He thinks about it for a while. "It's been a while since I've done that..." he says. "I didn't know humans could swim. I mean, usually don't you - we - humans in general - just sort of splash around in the shallow stuff and kiss hot babes in bikinis?"

You snort. "I can't breathe underwater, sure, but I can fucking swim," you say.

"If you say so," he says. "But, yeah, we could probably find someplace."

"I'll go pack us a picnic lunch or some shit like that," you say, moving away. Now you smell like his hair product. Your eyes are sort of watering. Wow, he really puts a lot in, doesn't he?

He nods and continues to work on his hair. Somehow you always seem to forget that it takes him like half an hour to do his hair. You should actually probably take a quick shower, too, but you just said that you were going to pack a picnic lunch, and besides, if you're just going to go swimming anyway, why the hell would you do that? Yeah, you can skip the shower. Your hair looks decent, you don't have to fix that, so you can just put on some clothes and work on that picnic lunch. Hopefully this one will go a hell of a lot better than the last one did. You don't think either of you can handle Kurloz showing up and beating the shit out of Cronus again.

* * *

**i had no idea where i was going with this but next chapter they go swimming and have a picnic lunch and stuff maybe they'll run into some other trolls it'll be a fun time**


	43. Chapter Forty-three: Cronus

Your name is Cronus Ampora and your hair is taking _way_ too long today.

Dirk is in the kitchen, putting some stuff together for a picnic lunch that will hopefully turn out better than the last one. You don't think you could handle another beating from Kurloz. Seriously, the guy won't give you a break. He's such an asshole. Why do they like him more than they like you again? Hell, why did he have a matesprit before you did? What is _wrong_ with the other trolls in your session?

You sigh, putting the finishing touches on your hair and heading to the kitchen. Dirk is just finishing up your lunch, fitting a few extra sandwiches into the basket. You really hope he's planning on carrying that again, because it looks _way_ too heavy for you. "Oh, I called Rufioh, by the way," Dirk says. "He was in your phone. Didn't sound too happy when he first picked up, but him and his boyfriend are meeting us out there. We're double dating it."

You blink. "Oh," you say. "Uh, okay. Is that why you're shoving that thing full of food?"

"Yeah," he says, grimacing. "I don't know about Rufioh, but you sure as hell eat a lot, and his boyfriend's fucking _huge_, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Don't know if they'll end up swimming, not being fish trolls and all, but we can have lunch together, right?"

You nod. It might be a little weird, and they won't end up swimming, but, whatever. Your matesprit can do what he wants. He's Dirk Strider.

"I hope you're planning on carrying that," you say. He nods and grabs it, lifting it with what seems like no problems whatsoever. _Damn_, you're jealous. Genetically, you have the upper hand when it comes to strength, but the first six or seven sweeps of your life were wasted away by that stupid magic stuff, and you didn't even bother with fighting without a wand so you never did any hand-to-hand combat or anything, and then you were focused on other stuff and now you're dead and it's not even worth it. Ugh. And you'll be there with _Zahhak_, who is probably the most ridiculously over-muscled being you have ever known. Wow, you'd better hope that Rufioh's a weakling because otherwise you'll look so bad.

You can make up for it with how awesome your hair looks, though, even though that'll be ruined by the water because the good hair stuff that _doesn't_ immediately wash out in water just doesn't work as well. You've used it once or twice and it totally ruins your hair. Yeah. No, you're never using that. You'll end up looking like an idiot, but if you keep your head above water you should be fine, right?

You contemplate this as you walk to your designated swimming area with Dirk. The two of you aren't holding hands like you usually do, but you're still walking close, and really, that's all that matters.

Rufioh and Horuss are already there, Horuss sweating like a madman and Rufioh looking awkward. Dirk sets down the food. Rufioh eyes it.

"What's in there?" he asks. Dirk shrugs.

"A bunch of stuff," he says. "I just threw in whatever Cronus had handy."

You stretch, noticing that Horuss is sort of glaring at you. Wow, he totally does not trust you, even though you have a steady matesprit. He's actually really freaking you out right now. Like, seriously. He needs to stop.

Something in you tells you to say something about it, but another, saner part of you tells you that that's stupid and that you shouldn't do that. But then again, when have you _not_ said what was right on your mind, especially if it could cause bodily harm to you. Hell, you're an _expert_ on saying things that eventually bite you in the ass.

"Hey, chief, cut it out," you say.

"Excuse me?" Horuss asks.

"Look, it's your matesprit that has the problem keeping faithful, not me," you say. Rufioh flushes, turning his full attention to the food. Dirk looks back and forth between the two of you, alarmed. Yeah, by the time Horuss is done with you he's probably going to be able to carry you back in that picnic basket. You're such an idiot. "Like, seriously, he hasn't ever really responded to my advances, and I have a matesprit, so-"

"Cronus," Dirk says. "Shut the fuck up."

Yeah, Horuss's sweating has pretty much doubled this was a really bad idea. Rufioh's face is bronze. He's trying to hide it by feigning _extreme_ interest in the food, but it's not really fooling anyone. Horuss is seriously breathing heavily, too. Wow. You really made him mad. Maybe you should go swim now. He won't follow you into the water, right? He's a landdweller, after all.

"Alright," Dirk says. "We're going to have a picnic. We're not going to talk about unfaithful romantic partners or previous crushes. We're just going to enjoy our goddam food and get on with our day. Alright? Alright."

"I agree with him..." Rufioh says, still slightly bronze. Horuss gives a slight nod, and you let out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding. Alright. Today is looking good. "Also... yeah, uh... Horuss... Speaking of that unfaithful thing..."

Horuss isn't appearing to hear Rufioh, and you sort of feel bad for the guy. But you get over it when Dirk pulls you down onto his lap, kissing you on the cheek. Hell yeah. You get to show off in front of Horuss and Rufioh. You're not going to try to bang Rufioh, even though he is really fucking hot. Even though you have a lot of awesome pickup lines for him. Because you have Dirk, who will probably not cheat on you and will kiss you and fuck you and stuff like that.

"I think we should... you know, maybe see other people... and maybe... I dunno... stop seeing each other at all, actually..." Rufioh says. As soon as he finishes, Horuss pushes a button and a stream of sweat pours out of his weird helmet-thing. Alright. That is definitely the grossest thing you have ever seen. Like. Ew. Rufioh sighs. "Again?" he mutters.

"I am sorry," Horuss says, still smiling as he looks at Rufioh. "Sweat has a habit of clogging my ears."

"Yeah... I know..." Rufioh said, looking glum. He looks at you and Dirk almost longingly. Does he want a threesome? Is that a thing that you can do? You decide to mention the idea to Dirk later. Yeah, you think he'd totally be into that. "Hey... so, what all's in these sandwiches?"

* * *

**this was going to be longer but i ran out of time oops**


	44. Chapter Forty-four: Cronus

The rest of the picnic lunch is, to say the least, really awkward. Rufioh keeps glancing at you and Dirk, and Horuss keeps professing his love for Rufioh, and Dirk keeps kissing you. That part's less awkward and more nice, but it makes it a little awkward for Rufioh, who has to ward off Horuss trying to be adorable with him. Haha, you've got a great matesprit.

They leave once the food's gone, of course, Horuss pulling Rufioh away as fast as he can. As soon as they're out of sight, your phone vibrates. You glance down. It's Rufioh.

'hey... uh... can 1 maybe hang out w1th you guys later, w1thout horuss? 1 mean... d1rk's pretty cool and you're not that bad, 1 guess...'

Yeah, he totally wants a threesome.

You smirk and begin to tap out a reply. Dirk looks over your shoulder at who you're texting.

"Huh," he says. "I feel bad for the guy, really. The sweaty one seems like a handful."

"Yeah," you say. You glance at him. "How would you feel about a threesome with Rufioh?"

He blinks, turning slightly pinkish. "Uh," he says. "Well."

You wait for a few minutes, then go back to replying to Rufioh. 'yeah, sure, vwhatevwer. just make sure that horuss doesnt freak out on us or anything.'

He texts back that no, Horuss will probably be around Meulin when this takes place, and you decide that that's probably as good as it's going to get. You put your phone away and kiss Dirk.

Once he pulls away, he brings up swimming.

"Sure," you say. It's been so long since you've gone swimming, but it's totally going to ruin your hair. Then again, it's going to be so nice, especially if you're with Dirk. You stand up, pulling him up after you. He changes into shorts and, like every time he's shirtless, you're struck with just how fucking hot he is. Like. Wow. _Wow_. You figure that you should copy him, because that's what humans do. Human girls wear skimpy things on their top and bottom, and human guys wear the shorts. Or sometimes less. But you're just going to copy Dirk, because he knows more about humans than you do.

He kisses you again before pulling you into the water. Almost as soon as you hit the water your gills open up, ready to leave air behind. It's a struggle to get them to cut it out, because it's reflexive and you haven't been in this kind of water for so long that they jump at the chance. It's not like the shower - in the shower, usually, they'll go halfway, but usually they're just slits on your neck and chest and sides. Dirk looks at you, interested.

"So, you can breathe underwater with that, right?" he asks. You nod.

"Yeah, but it'll mess up my hair," you say. He snorts, grabbing you around the neck and dunking you under. Your gills immediately open again, and you can just _feel_ your hair being decent totally die. You fight your way back up, shaking your head and watching mournfully as hair falls over your eyes, obscuring your vision a bit. Well, it's not like you can really see anyway. He's grinning, grabbing you around the waist and pulling you in for a kiss. You kiss him back, arms wrapped around his neck and waiting for the right moment to unbalance him and send him under, too. You'll have to be careful, because he can't breathe underwater (at least, you don't _think_ he can), but you can at least make his hair look as shitty as yours does.

After a few more moments pressed up against him, you shove him over, sending him backwards, arms flailing. He resurfaces after a few seconds, sputtering and swiping hair out of his eyes. It's a good thing he took off those sunglasses; from the way he was flailing around he probably would've taken one of his own eyes out. "Now we're ewe- shit, even," you say, stumbling over your 'v.' Those fucking v's and w's. Too many in a row absolutely _murder_ you. He laughs a little. You wish he wouldn't.

"It's cute," he says when you glare at him. "You've caught yourself every other time."

It's true that you have been very careful, pronouncing your v's and w's around Dirk. You don't want your stupid stuttering when there gets to be too many of them in a row to get in the way of you having sex. You're pretty sure that that's one of the reasons Meenah never wanted to have sex with you. You always fucked up the v's and w's. That's probably your major flaw.

Dirk is going in deeper, and you follow him. When he can't touch the bottom anymore he starts to swim, long, smooth strokes that accentuate the muscles of his shoulders and arms. You keep up with absolutely no difficulty. You're a seadweller, after all. Even if you didn't actually spend that much time in the water when you were alive. That's irrelevant. You were busy. And water had a habit of spotting up your glasses when you went on land. Overall, water just didn't work for you.

But the occasional swims are nice.

Dirk stops then, treading water, watching you. You wonder if he would drown if you were to kiss him right now. He seems to be a pretty able guy, he'd probably be able to multitask. And, anyway, he's godtier _and_ in a dreambubble, so you're pretty sure that he wouldn't be actually dead. You decide to kiss him anyway. It's a quick one, just a little peck on the lips, but he falters anyway. Damn. You can't make out while you're this far out, apparently. Well, you'll have to go back to the shallower stuff.

He's apparently thinking the same thing, because he begins to swim back to shore. You follow him closely, brushing up against him every few seconds. Once he can stand with most of his chest out the water, he grabs you and kisses you. Hard. You kiss back with all you've got, pressing yourself against him. The gills that are out of the water flutter, trying to find some water and, upon not finding any, close up. He makes a noise in the back of his throat and pulls you closer, if that's even possible. His arms are around you, groping your ass and your chest is pressed up against his, hands tangled in his hair and pulling his head closer to yours.

He kisses you hungrily, intensely, his tongue invading your mouth and your mouth happily obliging. You love it when he's like this, tough and strong and a little rough. Your bruises are gone, for the most part, just a few faded splotches hanging onto life now, and all of his reservations are gone. You love it, you love it, you _love_ it. Your bulge is seeking out something, too, and you can feel his dick hard through his shorts. You break the kiss long enough to jump up, legs hooking around his waist. He holds you up, kissing your jaw and neck, being careful around your gills.

You're pretty sure that you would've ended up having sex if it hadn't been for Mituna, _always_ ruining your life. Or death. Whatever this is.

He screams something about it being gross, and Dirk puts you down. _Damn_. This sucks. This really sucks. You, your bulge, and your nook were really looking forward to that. From the way his face looks, Dirk was looking forward to it, too.

Mituna's alone, but some brain-damaged idiot screaming and swearing and everything really kills the mood. Dirk exits the water, pulling you after him, and you flip Mituna off before changing back into your usual clothes. Your hair is, like you knew it would be, ruined. You take a little comfort in the fact that Dirk's hair looks stupid, too. Mituna's hair most likely looks like hell, underneath his helmet.

You and Dirk walk home, hands loosely linked, Dirk swinging the picnic basket with his other hand. This has, to be honest, been one of your better dates. Sure, Horuss nearly murdered you and Mituna killed the mood, but you didn't actually get murdered and there _was_ a mood, so you can chalk it up as a success.

Besides, you possibly have a threesome with Rufioh to look forward to.

* * *

**agh i'm sorry i haven't updated in a while i've been sort of busy so uh yeah there's that but yeah i think this might be ending soon? dunno i've still got to figure out how to end it but i have a sort-of idea so yeah soon it'll be ending. maybe at fifty chapters? yeah, we'll shoot for fifty, maybe**


	45. Chapter Forty-five: Cronus

Once the two of you get back to your hive, you decide to bring up the threesome idea again. He didn't exactly say no the last time, and that's enough so that you can try again, but you didn't get a confirmation, either, so you'll have to keep asking until you get one or the other.

"So, about that threesome thing..." you say, trailing off. Even though you're not in public anymore, he blushes a little. You can feel yourself blushing, too, just because he is. You usually have no problems talking about this sort of stuff. Usually there's absolutely no chance of it actually happening, which makes it easier to take lightly.

It's when people start to agree that you get a little flustered.

"So, did he actually say that he wanted that, or did he just imply it?" Dirk asks. You sigh.

"Well, he asked if he could hang out with us, and he was looking at us, like, the entire lunch, so I just sort of assumed. But I can ask him now if you want," you say. Dirk grabs your phone out of your hand before you can blink. "Hey, I was using that."

"Yeah, I don't want the sweaty one to come after us while he's going through Rufioh's texts," Dirk says. "I mean, I'm badass as hell, but I don't think that my muscles could stand up to his."

"You have a point," you say, sighing. You stretch, yawning a little. You really want to keep going at what you were doing on your date, but it just won't be the same. Stupid Mituna. Always ruining everything for you, isn't he? That _idiot_, just being an asshole and then apologizing when things get bad. Ugh. You hate him. He didn't used to be so bad, but then he had to go and ruin it all for everyone and just... ugh. You hate it. The two of you used to duel and stuff, back in your magic phase, magic versus psionics, and it was pretty fun. Well. When you won, it was pretty fun. Otherwise it really wasn't. But you didn't mind it, overall. At least you could understand why Latula liked him back then.

Dirk's just looking at you, and you realize that you probably look sort of sad. "You okay?" he asks. You nod, and he looks sort of skeptical, but he kisses you. That always fixes everything. You swear, Dirk Strider's kisses are an enigma sent from the gods. Ugh. You love it. He still doesn't look quite convinced that you're okay, but he'll get over it. You're sure as hell over it already.

"Wanna finish what we started at the beach?" you ask, smirking a little. You're pretty sure it looks stupid with your hair ruined, but who even cares. Okay, you do care, but Dirk says he doesn't, so it's fine. Yeah. It's fine.

You can see he wants to smile, but instead he just picks you up and kisses you again. You have to keep yourself from squeaking like a wriggler and instead kiss him back. He carries you into your bedroom, dropping you onto your bed and pulling your shirt up over your head. Once your arms are free, you do the same to him, struggling a little but it's worth the end result, which is Dirk Strider on top of you with his shirt off. He works at your pants next, and you try and help him out as much as you can - once again, you were an idiot and but on pants that are way too tight - getting his off as well. It's a lot easier to get his pants off. He doesn't wear pants that are practically one with his skin.

Oh, well. Your ass looks great in your pants.

He kisses you again, knees trapping your hips. His hands are pinning your wrists to the bed and it's so hot, him pinning you down and kissing you, his dick so dangerously close to your nook and your bulge trying to get at it. He stays just out of your reach, kissing you well enough but not doing anything more. You arch your back, bringing your flesh up to his. Your bulge immediately wraps around his dick, the strange heat of it warming you from head to toe. He falters in his rhythm, making a weird little noise before kissing you again. Your tongues battle it out while your back strains to keep arched and your bugle keeps curled around his dick. If you could arch a little more, putting your full weight on your shoulders, you could get your nook up there so that he could fuck that instead of just letting your bulge do its work.

He lets go of one of your wrists and you use it to pull him down, relieving the strain on your back. Your bulge uncurls from his dick, and he finally gets around to fucking your nook. He's rougher than he's been before, and _damn_ do you love it. You make way too much noise, as usual, but he doesn't mind, his face buried in your neck and his dick buried in your nook. You manage to grab a bucket before your genetic material goes all over the place (you actually usually have one under your bed, but it got thrown up on top for some reason. Either way, you're grateful for it), and Dirk's genetic material is in much less quantity and not purple, so it's okay.

Once the two of you are done, showered, and cuddling while watching Grease, your phone goes off. It's Rufioh.

'so... uh... tomorrow sound good for hang1ng out?'

'sure. my hivwe.'

'1 know'

Dirk shifts, and you glance up at him. "Rufioh," you say. "I told him he could come over tomorrow."

He nods slowly. "Still going for that threesome thing?"

"Yep," you say. "C'mon, don't tell me you haven't noticed how hot he is?"

He sighs, pressing a kiss to the tip of one of your horns. "Okay. If he goes along with it, I will too. But he's the only troll I will with."

"Nobody else will agree, don't worry," you say. "Rufioh's just doing it because we're stupid enough to actually go through with it. I know I would rather have sex with someone who didn't sweat out his body weight every hour than one who did. Or two who didn't than one who did. This is going to be great."

He laughs a little bit, hugging you tightly against him. You wriggle a little bit, trying to get your head in a place where your horns won't murder him, but he just holds onto you tighter. "Yeah, Cro," he says. "Great."

* * *

**i lied this isn't ending at 50 chapters i'm just updating every other day instead of every day**


	46. Chapter Forty-six: Dirk

Cronus is seriously worked up about Rufioh coming over.

You're sort of freaked out about the whole 'threesome' thing Cronus is convinced is going to happen, but, then again, what are the chances that that will _actually_ go down? Little to none, you're pretty sure. So you won't worry about it. Either way, you wonder why he's trying to clean up so much. Dirty t-shirts are being shoved under his bed, movies put in alphabetical order, bathroom wiped down... everything. He even found an old photo album and attempted to burn it.

You managed to save the photo album, though, and are looking through it while he works on the kitchen. You're sitting on the counter, laughing a little. God, he was such a fucking dork. It's so fucking cute. God. Look at that dork.

"It was a dark time, give me a break," he mutters. He knows what you're looking at. You stifle a grin.

"No, man, I dig the glasses. All round and Harry Potter. Seahorsedad looks proud," you say. He scowls and snatches the book out of your hands, slamming it shut and shoving it in the nearest available hiding spot. You sigh. Now you have nothing to do, apart from helping him clean, but he's basically done by now anyway. You lie down on the counter, one leg hanging off of the surface and swinging idly. "How come you didn't clean up for me?"

He turns slightly violet. "I didn't know when you were coming," he says. "You just sort of showed up and never left."

"Do you want me to leave?" you ask, and you swear you just asked him to kill the fucking president or something, he looks so horrified. He drops the broom he was using and is over by you before you can blink, grabbing onto your hand.

"No, no, I don't want you to leave, I-"

You kiss him to shut him up, sitting up and nearly smacking your head on a cabinet to do so. He relaxes, crumbling into you, face pressed into your shirt. You rub his back, and it takes a while, but eventually he's back to cleaning and obsessively looking out the window for Rufioh. After a few more minutes, Rufioh shows up, a bag slung over one shoulder. Cronus jumps for the door, opening it, grinning, cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Rufioh manages an awkward smile back.

"Uh, hey..." he says, dropping the bag on the floor just inside Cronus's house.

"What's in the bag?" you ask, still on the counter. Rufioh glances at the bag as if seeing it for the first time, then flushes.

"Oh... yeah, that's just some stuff that I grabbed to make Horuss think we actually were watching some troll anime..." he said. "Just the first few seasons of some cool ones... but we don't actually have to watch them."

You decide to see what he brought. You hop off of the counter and make a completely complicated yet completely badass path to the two of them. By the end of it, Rufioh looks like he's not quite sure what he's gotten himself into and Cronus looks like he's probably really turned on. You ignore it and crouch down to dig through the troll anime.

It's nothing you know of, being _troll_ anime, but some of them look similar to things you've seen. You see a troll version of Bleach, a troll version of Durarara!, a troll version of Death Note... really, troll versions of all of the good, major ones that everyone's seen. There's even what looks like a troll version of Shingeki no Kyojin.

...You would be lying if you said that you didn't want to skip the whole 'threesome' thing and just watch this all night. You wonder how troll Japanese is, or if he has them dubbed. Or what language the subtitles are in, if it's subbed. So many questions. So much troll anime. So little time.

"Or we could actually watch it," Rufioh says. Cronus looks like he's about to kill himself. You smirk, zip the bag back up, and shake your head.

"How about later?" you ask. "I mean, when we're all done and stuff. I'm a little interested to see if they're like their human counterparts, and how troll culture fit in there if they are. Fuck, who knew that you had Troll Shingeki no Kyojin?"

He has no idea what you're talking about, but that's okay. You tend to ramble about things that nobody cares about. It's sort of a problem. You don't talk all that much, but if you get going on something... you're really no better than Cronus. Speaking of Cronus, you should probably reassure him that you are not, in fact, going to watch troll anime all night. You stand up, stretch, and peck him on the lips.

"Don't you dare watch anime all night," he mutters. You laugh a little.

"Don't worry," you say. Rufioh looks seriously awkward. You look him straight in the eye and say, "So, Cronus thinks you're up for a threesome."

This was probably not the best thing to say.

He turns a dark shade of bronze. "Uh," he says. "It would be nice... I guess... I mean... I knew Cronus would be up for it... didn't know about you... the two of you just seem so nice together, and I sort of wanted a piece of it... cute shit like that doesn't really happen with me and Horuss anymore, you know... or sexy shit either, I guess... nothing, actually... well, we pail sometimes, but it's so sweaty that it feels like I'm taking a bath, you know what I'm saying?"

You feel sort of sick. From the look of it, so does Cronus. You swallow, just looking at Cronus, wonder what he's going to say.

After a few more moments, he finally does say something. And it's a little insulting, but you're pretty sure Rufioh won't take offense. After all, he seems like a pretty chill guy.

"First of all, can you not talk about it like that? It's really disgusting, actually, and I think that if we're going to have sex we should cut to the chase, because I spent all day getting everything ready, and if you two are just going to talk about troll anime and having sex with someone so sweaty it's like you're taking a bath, what was even the point?"

"Calm down," you say in a low voice. He sounds pissed, but you're pretty sure he's just nervous. It's a different kind of nervous than usual... he's nervous, and he's trying to impress someone, so he just comes off as a douchebag. You feel sort of bad. He looks at you, grimacing. "Look. It's okay. Just calm down, and we can work this out."

Rufioh nods, beginning the long, complicated process of taking off his shirt. "It's gonna be a while... figured I better get a head start on this..." he mutters, and you nod, looking at Cronus.

"See? It's gonna be fine," you say.

* * *

**next chapter it happens probably unless something happens to stop it**


	47. Chapter Forty-seven: Dirk

"You can come in more, if you want," you tell Rufioh, who has his shirt over his head. His arms are stuck, and he wriggles his fingers. You take him by the elbow ad pull him deeper into the house, leading him up to Cronus's bedroom. Cronus follows silently. You take his hand in your free one, and he seems to get a little less nervous.

Wow. You suddenly went from doubting this thing's existence to controlling it. You are the middleman.

Yeah... you really hope you don't end up being the literal middle man.

Cronus can do that.

It would be way more possible for him, too.

How is this going to work, again?

Once you get into the bedroom, Rufioh finishes getting his shirt off. He takes a deep breath and glances around. "Woah," he says. "Didn't think you took that human thing this far..."

Cronus shrugs. "Aren't you glad I have a bed instead of a recuperacoon?"

Rufioh nods, looking a little defensive. "Just saying... I guess, Dirk being here, too... you kind of have to have a bed, don't you?"

Cronus nods, and he's acting pissed, but you can tell by the way that he's looking at Rufioh's unclothed torso that he's not. You roll your eyes and decide to get this party started.

You decide to bring in Rufioh right away - he's the outsider here, you're going to need to get him used to the two of you while he gets you two used to him, so you grab his face and kiss him. He's a little startled, but he gets over it a hell of a lot faster than Cronus ever has, taking total control of the situation and pushing you back onto the bed, straddling your hips and kissing you with a a fervor. His body temperature is a lot closer to yours than Cronus's is - it's maybe even a little warmer. From what you can see, Cronus is hovering around the side of the bed, wondering how to get it in on the action, so you try and take your mind off of the incredibly skilled mouth that is kissing you and grab onto the bottom of his shirt, pulling him toward the two of you.

Cronus nearly falls. He's shaking a little, but you slip your hand under his shirt and trail your thumb against one of his gills, and he forgets his insecurities and wraps his arms around Rufioh's waist from the back, carefully avoiding wings, and somehow manages to kiss his neck. Rufioh makes a little noise, nothing compared to Cronus but a noise nonetheless, and turns away from you for a second to kiss Cronus on the mouth. Cronus melts, and you push Rufioh (and Cronus, to be honest, he's sort of on your lap too by now) off of you, standing up and pulling Cronus in-between the two of you. Rufioh dips his head from Cronus's mouth to his neck, and as soon as his mouth makes contact with Cronus's skin he lets out one of those little moans. You have to support him, kissing him on the corner of the mouth.

Rufioh glances at you and mouths, "Is he always like this?"

You nod and pull Cronus to face you, slipping your arms around him, pulling him as close to you as you can, while pulling Rufioh in on at as well. The two of you practically fight for Cronus, kissing him almost savagely, you having to keep your balance with the lower part of your legs against the bed and Cronus's full weight on you half of the time. Your hands are groping Rufioh's ass, and he hisses, diving into Cronus's neck with a new vengeance. Cronus, of course, is moaning and whining and making all sorts of noises.

Your shirt comes off next - Rufioh reaches around Cronus and pulls your shirt up and over your head. You let him, your arms going up so that he can, and then he twists the shirt around your wrists, keeping one hand up there to keep them pinned and slipping his other hand into Cronus's jeans, flicking open the button so that he can get it in. Cronus moans, leaning more against Rufioh now, and you can only scowl, struggling to push your body up against Cronus's to kiss him. Rufioh sees you and smirks. His hand is apparently doing some good stuff in Cronus's pants, because he is certainly making a lot of noise. Like usual, but usually you're the one who makes him make those noises.

You hook your foot around Cronus's leg and unbalance both of you, pulling him out of Rufioh's grip and on top of you on the bed. Your hands are effectively free, so you toss the shirt across the room and kiss Cronus on the mouth before working on getting him out of his shirt. He helps you as best as he can, and Rufioh looks on. He's thinking, you can tell.

Then he takes off his pants and you have to admit you are distracted.

He's got the same kind of organ as Cronus does, although it's brown instead of purple and wow you want him on top of you at that second. You distract yourself with Cronus, slipping your hands into his jeans and working them down his legs, setting his bulge free. He, apparently, has forgotten about Rufioh's existence and is arching up a bit to get your pants unbuttoned and off, too, when Rufioh pulls him off of you and kisses him, pulling his pants off the rest of the way and letting his bulge seek out Cronus's. You sit up, breathing hard, and watch as Rufioh pulls Cronus into him, kissing him sloppily and guiding their bulges the way he wanted them.

You sneak up behind Cronus and put your hand down, letting both of their bulges explore it, loving the contrast in heat. Rufioh growls, and you slip your other hand around Cronus, bringing it up to Rufioh's face and running your thumb over his bottom lip. He leans toward you, crushing Cronus between the two of you and kissing you on the lips. Your the only one with a little bit of clothes on, your pants unbuttoned and around your knees but your underwear still on, and you press into Cronus, one hand still at his and Rufioh's bulges, the other holding onto Rufioh's face as you kiss him, rougher than you've ever kissed Cronus. He's got legitimate fangs, not quite as sharp as Cronus's but a few way longer. Cronus is wriggling and moaning between the two of you, and in one clean movement Rufioh breaks the kiss and pushes Cronus back a bit, untangling his bulge enough to get it into Cronus's nook. Cronus is louder than you've ever heard him before, wriggling to get more of Rufioh's bulge inside of him.

You kiss Cronus's neck, tonguing his gills, and you can tell this is way overstimulating him. He says something that sounds faintly like 'bucket', and Rufioh pulls one out of his sylladex faster than you thought possible. Only a few drops of Cronus's purple genetic material makes it onto the bed, for the most part, Rufioh handles this like a pro. He pulls out of Cronus, who slumps against you, exhausted.

Rufioh looks at you. "Do you want to keep going?" he asks. Unlike usual, he's talking at a perfectly normal speed. You glance at Cronus. It's different if it's all three of you, but...

Cronus waves his hand dismissively. "Go for it," he mutters. He can feel how hard your dick is against his back. "I'll watch."

Rufioh sets the bucket down on the floor and you move Cronus over to the other part of the bed, kissing him on the forehead before going to Rufioh, kissing him on the mouth, no Cronus between the two of you to fight over. Rufioh kisses you back, trying to overpower you, pulling down your underwear with ease. You grab onto his horns, near the base, and he gasps against your mouth, faltering. You use this to overpower him, your hand going down to his bulge, stroking it, feeling how much warmer it is than Cronus's.

"First one to come loses," you mutter in his ear, and he narrows his eyes, coming back at you with a renewed strength. He pushes you onto your back, scraping long teeth against your neck and letting his bulge curl around your dick. He has to have noticed that you don't have a nook, but he takes it in stride, focusing all of his bulge's attention on your dick. You're actually making quite a bit of noise. You need to grab his horns again.

You do, and he whines a little, wrenching your hands away from his horns and pinning them above your head with one hand. It's weird, how strong he is - it must be a lot of lean muscle, you're a hell of a lot bulkier than he is. You arch your back, making a small noise in the back of your throat. You're really close. You're really, really close.

He kisses you on the mouth and you bite down on his lip, hard, and he squeaks. You can taste a little blood; not much, but enough. He's tense, and you can tell that he's close, too, it's just a matter of who has better endurance. You swallow, and after one more mind-blowing kiss from Rufioh, with the blood mixed in and your hands pinned over your head, you know that he's winning this one.

Once you're done, he lets go of you and makes quick work of himself, making sure it goes into the bucket. Trolls have a lot more, well, 'genetic material' than humans do coming out at once, and it's a little interesting. Cronus mutters something about grubs and Rufioh laughs.

"Yeah, too bad we're not alive..." he says, staring down into the bucket. Frankly, you find the bucket a little weird, but you're not going to say anything. You inch over to where Cronus is, letting him curl into you. Rufioh looks slightly uncomfortable.

"Can I use your shower...?" he asks, and Cronus nods. "Hope I fit... I'll probably go home after that... it was nice, though. Hope Horuss doesn't ask about my lip... I'll tell him I have a kismesis... maybe Porrim will say it's her..."

He trails off, leaving the room. You pull a blanket up over you and Cronus, feeling a little bad about Rufioh not being here, too, but it's not like he's built for cuddling, anyway, what with the wings and huge bull horns.

"That was fun," Cronus says, and you nod. "Looks like you and him were getting a little black there, fighting over my like that. It was hot."

You nod, absentmindedly pressing a kiss to his forehead. Yeah. It was fun. And if 'black' sex is like that, rough and competitive and _great_, you think that the concept of a kismesis isn't too bad at all.

* * *

**on another note i started shipping black dirkxrufioh.**

**but yeah this took a long time actually like a few hours i was going to write a jadetav after this but i dont have any time it's sad**


	48. Chapter Forty-eight: Dirk

Cronus falls asleep almost immediately. You can hear the water running in the bathroom - Rufioh must have fit in the shower after all. You're tired, physically, but you don't really feel like you need sleep. You'll lie there with Cronus for a little longer, though. He's already curled up against you, his head on your chest, and you don't want to wake him up just because you're bored. You wonder if Rufioh will let you borrow some of his troll anime.

He doesn't even stop back in after getting out of the shower, though, so you figure that that's a no.

Cronus makes a little noise in his sleep and rolls over, clutching a pillow and burying his face in it. You look at him and smile. It's the perfect opportunity to get out of bed and do something. Maybe you can head out. Practice with your sword. You're seriously out of practice. You've been spending too much time with Cronus, who, to be honest, isn't much of a fighter.

You get some clothes on and head out, scribbling a quick note for Cronus. You figure you'll be back before he wakes up, but he'll freak out if you're not there. Yeah, it's best to just have a note.

You wander along the dreambubbles, looking for a suitable place to practice. You're not quite sure how you're going to practice, but you can just hack at some trees or something. At least it'll help with your power, right? Accuracy, maybe not, seeing as trees just sort of are in one place from the moment they're planted until they die, but power? Yeah, totally. You find a suitable tree and start hacking away at it.

It takes you a few minutes to realize that you're not alone.

You pause, arm still aching from how hard you hit the tree on that last swing, and turn around. Leaning against a wall behind you is Kurloz Makara, smiling with that stupid stitched-up mouth and just _watching_ you. You're immediately on your guard, turning around completely, sword between the two of you. He puts his hands up defensively, shaking his head. So he doesn't want to fight. What does he want, then? To talk? With his mouth all-stitched up? Unless he has telepathy or something, you're pretty sure that's not possible.

He sits down on the ground and pats the spot in front of him. He wants you to sit down. You'd rather not. You get a little closer to him, sure, but you elect to stand. He shrugs, like it's not a big deal, and the next thing you know there are words in your head that you did /not/ think.

**mother fucker, we need to talk**

They're not too loud, not really drowning out your thoughts - really, it's if someone's just talking to you. You know that they came from Kurloz. You just _know_.

"Yeah?" you say. "About what?"

**your absolutely fucking disgusting matesprit. **

You suddenly feel a little woozy. You decide that, maybe, you can stand to sit down after all. You set down your sword next to you, too, because why the hell would you need that? Wait. You were talking to Kurloz, weren't you? You don't really remember what he last said. Before that he said that you needed to talk. Second... you're not quite sure. It's a little fuzzy. You weren't really paying attention.

"Didn't catch that, man," you say. You're totally at ease here. You stretch out a little, leaning back on your elbows. Kurloz is smiling. It's a beautiful day. What you really need next to you is Jake, laughing and smiling that cute little smile - no, no, you and Jake are over. You frown a little, and then you think about Rufioh. Maybe Rufioh should be here. The two of you could play some extremely dorky card game, but take it seriously - add a stripping element into it, and then you could - no, wait, even if you and Rufioh do maybe get something black going on later, you're dating _Cronus_. What this moment needs is Cronus, sitting beside you, maybe with a guitar or something, because he did say something about music a while ago. Yeah. He could work on music, and you could sit beside him, sneaking kisses and screwing up his rhythm, just for fun.

Yeah.

You need Cronus.

But Cronus is asleep now, and you're talking to Kurloz. "Sorry, just got a little distracted," you say. He nods. He's still smiling. It doesn't look as easygoing as before, but you figure that it's okay.

**that's okay, mother fucker. i'll have you thinking my way soon enough. **

You're a little confused as to what this means, but it can't be too bad. It's a beautiful day. "...Sure," you say. You have to admit, you're a little unnerved. Not really, though.

It's a beautiful day.

You sit up straighter, trying to ward off a sudden wave of exhaustion. You yawn, wondering if you should maybe take off your shades and lie down for a nap. A nap outside sounds pretty fucking rad right about now, actually. The ground is so soft... and it's a beautiful day, why should you waste it? You glance at Kurloz. "Nobody'll murder me if I take a quick nap, right?"

He nods, and you take that as nobody will murder you, so you lie down right where you are, shades off and next to your sword. You're asleep in seconds.

Weirdly enough, you're dreaming. Dreaming within a dreambubble. It's really weird. It looks like you're in the dreambubble... maybe it's a memory of some kind? Either way, it's a beautiful day.

Is that Cronus somewhere over there? You speed up, and notice that he's with someone. Mituna, it looks like. Wow, he's really laying it on really hard... you wince a little for the poor little guy. Mituna looks like he's about to cry, and Cronus isn't even slowing down. Like. Wow. You're... you're not sure what to think right now.

The scene switches. Cronus and Rufioh, now. Cronus is getting way up in Rufioh's personal space, and the poor guy looks like he's sweating as much as his matesprit. This one doesn't take as long as the last one, but it still makes you a little uncomfortable.

He's with Kankri now and you just _know_ that this one is going to take forever. You want out before they start talking about trigger warnings or some shit like that. And, your mind complying with your wishes, you do get kicked out of it. You're lying on your back on the ground, eyes closed. You're thinking.

**what a mother fucking disgrace. a hero of hope, failing so drastically. they're supposed to be dangerous. he's just pathetic. all he does is look for people to fuck. it wouldn't take much for him to cheat. if he had the mother fucking chance, of course.**

Yeah, you have a lot of things to think about. It really is a beautiful day, though.

* * *

**i mentioned this at the end of history repeats, but there will be no more updates until december, because of nanowrimo next month. **_**maybe**_** a little earlier if i get done early, but the probability of that is pretty low. so. there's that.**


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